The Institution
by ReiLuvsAllen
Summary: no matter how bad things seem to get...murphy's law will always, always apply.Naruto finds this particular ideal apt as he is inducted into 'the institution' a hospital promoting psychological well being among its inhabitants. Not always effectively
1. Chapter 1

**I do not own this franchise…at least that's what my therapists tell me.**

**The Institution **

"What the hell is wrong with you?"

A small blond-haired boy stared up at the person yelling at him.

"I didn't do anything." He whimpered turning his blue-eyed gaze towards the floor.

Suddenly he was thrown back from a punch to his cheek; collapsing onto the floor, he made no effort to stand. This had happened so many times that by now it was almost routine. The man would yell at him…then attack.

"Of course you did, you little bastard miscreant. You think I don't know? You can never keep your mouth shut, not even this once, can you? You monster, you deserve everything you get."

At this point the child began to cry and hid his face beneath crossed arms, protecting his face, as more blows rained down on him.

"What are you?" the man asked, demanding an answer while continuing the pattern of abuse.

A murmur was all that was heard in response, which only enraged the man.

"I said…WHAT ARE YOU?" he screamed

"A monster" the boy choked out.

"That's right." the man said stepping back to view his handy work. "…and what do we do with demons and monsters?"

"Slaughter them." the boy whispered cringing.

The man laughed in sadistic enthusiasm for what he was about to do. He swung his foot around and slammed the boy in the side, testing out his aim as he prepared for a more serious blow.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO THAT BOY?"

/

"This is one of the most extreme cases that I've ever seen." the man told the court. "Not only has the victim been dosed with many varying psychotropic medicines (none of which were prescribed for him); he has suffered both physical and mental abuse. There is no evidence that he has ever had any sort of formal education, and he has no known relatives."

"Is it true that you were the one to apprehend the perpetrator of these crimes?" a lawyer questioned.

"That is correct."

"…and you witnessed some of the defendant's actions first-hand."

"Yes."

"Well then, Mr. Hatake can you tell us exactly what you witnessed."

"…I was on a routine patrol in the Shibuya area. I had just taken my break and was on my way back to meet my partner when I heard yelling and screaming coming from the back area of one of the shops. Upon further inspection I found the defendant, Mizuki, preparing to deliver what appeared to be a fatal blow to a child. I then called for my partners back-up immediately and we took custody of him with minimal force."

"and why is it that the victim is not here to give testimony today?" came the last question.

"He is currently still in the intensive care unit, and the psychologist reports suggest that he is too traumatised to face such a large crowd. Therefore he has given a written testimony, that has been received by the judge, as evidence."

The court room was silent as Kakashi completed his testimony. At this point the judge allowed the defence attorney to take over the questioning. The sinister appearing man, named Danzo, approached the bench.

"Mr. Hatake you appeared to have taken the boy to see to see a psychologist…."

"It is standard procedure." Kakashi responded coolly.

"Yes, however, is it ethical to take him to see a psychologist that you have been known to…'fraternise' with?" The man smirked

Kakashi stoic face turned a touch colder at this comment. "It is true that I am in a _relationship _with Iruka Umino. However, our personal lives have no bearing on our work, or as you suggested our 'ethics'."

There were mixed reactions to this debate among both the jury and the audience. Whether it was due to the fact that they were homosexual, or whether they believed either made a valid point was unclear.

"Regardless of that comment I would request that the court seek another psychologist to examine the boy, as I do not believe that he is as unhealthy as his supporters might be trying to convey."

The judge seemed to consider this, before he could respond however Danzo continued.

"This was also the first time that my client had raised a hand against the boy, and the reasons he did so were merely disciplinary."

Ibiki Morino stood up at this point. "Your defence has no basis in court, as Mizuki is not actually legally listed as a parental figure or carer for the child. Therefore disciplinary action is not an excuse."

The judge nodded to show that he supported Ibiki's statement.

"Can we please call the last witness to the stand?" he proceeded with the case, dismissing Kakashi from the stand, and Danzo's argument.

Mizuki rose to his feet and stomped his way over to the podium, as soon as his hands were un-cuffed from the rings of metal he had been restrained with. The usual routine was followed before the man sat and stared aggressively at the courtroom's inhabitants.

Danzo was the first to question him.

"Mizuki….What was the reason behind your actions in this situation?"

The man leaned back in his seat and scowled. "That idiot boy had just lost me $120, 000."

"…and why did you hit him?"

Mizuki shrugged. "He needed to be punished."

"How did he lose your money?"

"He gave away valuable information to a client of mine, that enabled him to take control of these funds, and steal them away."

"…And in regards to disciplining him…do you believe that is your right?"

"Hell yes, It's my right to punish the brat if I want to. I been looking after the fucking brat for long enough, he belongs to me."

"That's all I had to ask for the moment." Danzo smirked again, walking back and just barely missing colliding into Ibiki's shoulder as he walked up to the defendant.

"Can I ask you, Mizuki, what you do for a living?"

The man looked startled at this question and straightened up a bit.

"I am currently unemployed." he responded hesitantly.

Ibiki came closer to him. "And yet you came by $120,000 sitting idly by, with no work involved in producing it?"

Appearing even more flustered the man started sweating and fidgeting nervously. "I had it in my bank account."

Ibiki smiled, this was starting to turn in their favour. "That's strange, as when we checked your financial reports and balances, you have never had more than $5000 at any one time."

Mizuki broke. "It's not my fault, the boy should have just done as I told him. Then we'd both be better off. I shouldn't have to feed that demon, he should earn the money for the both of us. He's lucky I took him in at all, he was worse off with the people he was with before me. He probably deserved them, he's a monster, nothing more. He deserves to die, I'll fucking kill him myself!"

With that the crazed man leapt over the desk to attack the lawyer; only to be quickly subdued by the officers that were positioned around the room.

Once the noise within the court died down, following the removal of Mizuki, the judge announced that they would reconvene at a later date, when Mizuki would be sentenced for a number of crimes and misdemeanours accompanying the verdict from the jury.

Iruka, Ibiki, and Kakashi immediately made their way forward to the judge as everybody filed out of the room. Iruka stepped forward

"We'd like to discuss the future of the boy….**Naruto Uzumaki**."

/

**Chapter 1- Consequences**

"Naruto get down here right now!" Iruka yelled up the staircase a cup of coffee secured in one hand, the other holding the morning paper.

"I'm coming." a voice shouted down the stairs in response.

The next moment a blond boy came running down, and waved cheerily at Iruka before the settling himself at the kitchen table.

"When you're finished I'll drive you to school, okay?" Iruka sat down opening his paper.

A unintelligible sound came out of Naruto's mouth which was at that moment stuffed with some pancakes. Iruka took that as an okay and proceeded to finish his coffee. He quickly checked over his adoptive sons outfit. Orange skinny leg jeans, and a black v-neck shirt, perfectly reasonable. Iruka could remember the multiple times that Naruto had tried to go to school in his boxers or pyjamas. That could have been awkward.

Soon they were driving down the road towards the school and Naruto was bouncing up and down in his seat excitedly.

Iruka laughed at the boy's enthusiasm. Pulling over at the curb he gave a quick farewell, letting the boy out.

"Naruto you forgot your bag again!" he shouted before the blonde ran off. Spotting the item in question thrown on the floor of his car.

Rubbing the back of his head bashfully Naruto grinned, before grabbing his bag and quickly speeding off again.

Chuckling the older man once more waved off the boy and made his way to work. For the past 2 years Iruka had been working at one of the only Mental Health- Open units in the country as a psychologist. The 'institution', as it was known to those who worked and resided there; was only half an hour from his house, which was convenient and the pay was very good. The only downside to the job was that some of the patients cases were quite depressing. Iruka was a kind-hearted man at the worst of times, and it hurt him to see practically all the young people he worked with suffer. Though that was the exact reason he chose to work there. Unlike many other mental health practices, this one did not separate the age groups into juvenile centres and adult clinics. It was primarily for teenage and young adults. Tsunade the owner and manager had thought that this system was best, as the classification for such ages was difficult.

Parking swiftly, Iruka realised all of his contemplating had led to him being slightly late for work. Locking his car Iruka walked to the entrance of the large complex and nodded at the receptionist. Collecting his name tag and signing in, he then proceeded to his office thankful he didn't have an appointment this morning.

Settling down Iruka pulled the first file of the top of his mound of paperwork. Confirmation of medication forms…Iruka frowned. His first piece of work for the day and it was already too much trouble. Right away he found a discrepancy from the original version of the form, on one of the papers. He had at first sent this form to Tsunade for her perusal and confirmation, so they could order the medicine. This time it appeared someone had added an extra prescription to Sasuke Uchiha's name. Sasuke was under his own supervision, as Iruka was his psychologist, so this was extra suspicious. Especially since Sasuke didn't have any pre-existing medical condition that would require the particular prescription written. Iruka decided to resolve the situation immediately, making his way to Tsunade's office, he didn't want Sasuke's already fragile health to degrade by being given the wrong medicine.

"Iruka!" A happy cry of his name, had Iruka changing his course. Popping his head into the staff room he saw that a number of the employees had gathered together. Smiling his entered the room fully and said hello to everyone.

"Why are you all here? Shouldn't you be working?" he pretended to be disapproving, the smile on his face belied his teasing though.

One of the women smiled in return. "Asuma and I had an important announcement to make."

The man that Iruka knew to be Asuma came and stood behind her putting a hand lovingly on her shoulder.

"I'm pregnant." Kurenai announced happily to him.

Obviously she had already told the others as they did not too surprised by the revelation.

"That's wonderful!" Iruka gushed moving to embrace the woman. "How far along are you?"

"About a month." She giggled. "Thank god I'm not fat yet."

Asuma smirked. "You won't be fat, you'll be pregnant. _Completely_ different."

"Sure it is." she humoured him.

"Well that's wonderful, I'll see you later." Iruka said, once again starting out for Tsunade's office.

This time there were no interruptions in his journey and he was soon knocking on the woman's door.

"Come in." Tsunade answered. "Iruka…to what do I owe this pleasure?" she asked.

Iruka took a moment to look at the women. She looked nice today; she was wearing a teal coloured jacket that went well with her blonde hair and succeeded in drawing attention away from her rather well-endowed chest.

He showed her the sheet of paper that had been worrying him. "Did you authorise this extra prescription for Sasuke Uchiha?" he pointed it out for her.

She frowned. "No" she answered slowly as if she was trying to remember doing so.

"Well I didn't either." he said.

"Don't worry about it." she alleviated his fears "I'll take care of it."

"Was there anything else?" she asked.

"Nope." he answered just as the phone rang.

"This is Tsunade speaking." the women said holding the phone to her ear. She glanced up at Iruka. "Yes he is here…." she responded to whoever was speaking.

Iruka raised his eyebrow. Why would they ring Tsunade's office if they wanted to talk to him?

"Alright, we'll come immediately." she sighed hanging up slowly.

At this point Iruka became worried and when she turned her gaze up towards him, this feeling increased exponentially at her expression.

"Sit down Iruka." she said tiredly waving at the chair.

"Who was that?" he asked hesitantly

"The brat's school." she answered and Iruka straightened in his chair.

"Was it about Naruto?" he asked

She just nodded standing up. "He's had another attack," she said. "You know what that means don't you."

Iruka nodded and stood up as well upset. "Do you mind if I use your phone to call Kakashi?" he asked.

"Alright, get him to meet us at the school, if he can get the time off." she said.

/

Naruto jumped out happily from Iruka's car and started to walk towards school. Only to be called back by Iruka for forgetting his bag again. Rubbing the back of his head bashfully he ran back quickly to get it. Bidding his adoptive father a second goodbye he dashed off quickly, hoping no-one noticed his error.

Running up the front steps, Naruto made his way hastily to the class room. Hoping he would have a little bit of time to talk to his friends before the bell rang. Suddenly thoguh the blonde boy felt a force pressing against his back, and he fell forward, tripping slightly over his own feet. He threw out his hands to prevent himself falling face first and as a result grazed them against the hard ground.

"Ow…." he sat up properly, holding his bleeding hands gingerly. "What was that for?" he turned around.

One of the older students was standing over him; a couple of his friends were visible in the background gawking and laughing as well. That pained him more than his hurt hands ever could.

"What do you think it was for, you homo?" the leader chuckled to himself.

Naruto realising they were just bullies silently stood and started walking away. Better to try and ignore them, than start something he possibly couldn't finish.

"Hey I was talking to you!" the boy yelled and stomped after him.

Naruto just continued to ignore him, he was used to this by now, there was no point in simply entertaining his harassers. That was until they started with a new taunt, one that struck home with the boy. One they hadn't thought to use against him before.

"I said…I was talking to you…SLUT!"

He stopped dead, long repressed memories came flooding back into his mind. So sudden he did not know whether to cry or turn around and attack. He stood shaking, frozen on the spot. He was aware of his would-be-bully grabbing his shoulder and yelling something further into his ear; Naruto was so out of it, he could not even tell whether it was derogatory or not. Before Naruto knew what had happened someone new had a hold of him and was steering him towards an unknown destination. Yelling back at the students that had prompted the situation.

When he came back to himself he was sitting alone in an office that was all too familiar to him. The dark grey walls, and plush leather seats seemed extremely foreboding to him at the moment.

"Naruto are you feeling better now?" a voice asked from the doorway, spurring Naruto to quickly rise from his seat and do an about face.

"I'm feeling fine now, Mr. Yakushi…I'll just get to class."

The silver haired man walked further into the room adjusting his glasses as he did so. He situated himself just in front of Naruto, leaning against his shiny desk and smiled down at him.

"Don't push yourself Naruto…and I thought I gave you permission to call me Kabuto. You know you gave the other students quite the scare with that attack earlier. You haven't had an attack that severe in a while, have you?"

Naruto shuddered not liking the reminder at all. The last big one he had was at school as well, luckily it was only him and one other student. The student _just so happened _to transfer school the next day as well.

"It really wasn't that bad." he lied.

"You remembered something again didn't you?" Kabuto's smile faded "What was it?"

Naruto tried to move away from the teacher, not ready to confront his issues, not yet…and certainly not with this man. He always had a bad feeling when the school's councillor was around, and he was a person who believed in trusting his instincts.

As he attempted to move away Kabuto seemed to become incensed. He made a grab for the student hissing.

"Naruto you have to tell me, it's for your own good." He said latching onto Naruto's wrist.

Immediately Naruto started to shudder, another attack coming. He knew this man, had met him before. He gasped; that's why Kabuto was always asking him what he remembered, and why Naruto was always suspicious of him.

"TELL ME!" the teacher roared as soon as he saw his students scared face.

"NO, Let Go!" he pulled his arm away, memories bombarding him.

It became to much for him, the combined battle between Kabuto and himself in reality and the increasingly traumatising psychological one.

Naruto started screaming, the convulsions tearing him away from Kabuto, to the floor. As soon as he hit the floor he scrambled back into a corner and held his head in his hands, still screaming.

The disturbance was such that it compelled all the teachers and not a few of the students in the vicinity to come running.

"What happened?" One of the teachers asked Kabuto, while the other teacher present ran to check on Naruto.

Kabuto put on an innocent façade. "I don't know one minute we were talking, the next he was having an attack."

"I'll go and get the principal, you look after him." Kabuto suggested.

The other teachers nodded and the councillor ran off.

"Shhh…quiet down now." One of the teachers attempted to calm the boy. "You're alright now."

Naruto's voice was hoarse by now; and his hands were bleeding from where his nails cut into them from the pressure of his grip as well as his fall.

"Come on now, the rest of you back to class." the another teacher ushered the students out, closing the door behind himself as he attempted to ward off the stragglers.

The one that remained, an English teacher (though Naruto couldn't identify that at the time), approached him. He slowly raised his hand and tried to place it on the teens shoulder. As soon as he came near though the blond boy gave a scared exclamation and bit the hand as it came closer. From that moment on , no-one tried to touch the boy and contented themselves by being supportive and attempting to calm him verbally. That was, until the principal showed up with Iruka and his boss in tow.

As soon as Iruka saw the poor boy he ran up to him and embraced him. Ignoring the struggling arms he gathered Naruto onto his lap and rocked him softly.

"Oh...Naruto." Tsunade whispered sadly.

"Naruto, it's Iruka calm down." the psychologist ordered firmly.

"I-Iruka?" Naruto finally calmed down a little. Still shaking he pried open his eyes, that had been shuttered firmly for a while. He stared with wide eyes up at the man, tears welling up them.

"Yes, its me…now what happened?" Iruka asked soothingly, hugging Naruto to him closer.

Naruto was still out of it however, and his attack had taken a lot out of him both physically and mentally.

"I-I….ruka." he murmured before promptly fainting into his guardians arms.

/

**Rei; "That's the end of the prologue and first chapter."**

**Sasuke; "You're an idiot. Why didn't you have them separately?"**

**Rei; "Because unlike some people I hate short chapters, and one chapter means less to download than two chapters."**

**Sasuke; "Those are stupid reasons."**

**Naruto; "I have to agree with the bastard there."**

**Rei; "Yeah well I control you…so yeah."**


	2. Chapter 2

**In case, you are a **_**very special**_** type of person and, missed it the first time. I do not own Naruto…the characters of Naruto…or anything else to do with the damn business…..kind of wish I did though.**

Naruto was, by nature, a happy child. He smiled and laughed. He was often flighty, but despite that a protective friend, and passionate, emotive human being….usually. The events that had transpired in his past made him prone to; panic/anxiety attacks, and violence. This was more than likely because he always acts before he thinks. That, and when in trouble one either picks the flight, or fight response. Naruto always had trouble sticking to only one reaction in the best of situations.

/

**Chapter two-**

When Naruto awoke it was in the comfort of his own bed, at home. Drowsily he rubbed his eyes and looked around. He spotted Iruka sitting prone on his desk chair, a blanket only covering the lower half of his sleeping form. Naruto shot forward, sitting upright. He remembered what had happened before he fainted. The memories that the bullies, and Kabuto's actions had produced, and the fight against said councillor. Tears began to build up in his eyes steadily. He wondered if it was worse not having his bad memories and having them come back eventually; or remembering all the terrible things that had happened to him in the first place. He had thought that he had finally started to get over his past, he had not had an attack for months, and no new revelations for years. Then this new knowledge comes…. and he's shattered all over again. Sobbing racked Naruto's frame causing him to quiver. Iruka woke up immediately at the sound and instantly moved to comfort his adoptive son. Sitting down on the bed next to him and holding him from around his shoulders. Naruto immediately moved into the warmth; his eyes covered by his hands, tears dripping out from under them and onto Iruka's shirt. As the man held him, he saw his lover appear in the doorway and watch the two of them. Slowly the other came over as well, and encompassed both of them in his strong embrace.

"Sorry I couldn't be there." he apologised quietly to Iruka.

Iruka just gave him an understanding smile as Naruto continued to cry.

Soon enough though the flow of tears stopped and the room was thrown into a tense silence.

"Naruto…."

"Naruto?"

The adults looked at each other worried. "Tell us what happened" Iruka pleaded. "Was it a memory? Did something happen at school to trigger an attack?"

Not hearing anything from the boy Kakashi tried his luck. "We can't help you if you're being a spoiled brat and not telling us anything." he said.

Naruto pursed his lips slightly. He wasn't spoiled, they knew that. Besides, it wasn't as if it was any of their business. Aside from that, he didn't want to worry them, and….he was embarrassed and ashamed.

So instead of giving them all the details, he conveyed what he could with the two things he remembered foremost in his mind. The triggers.

"Slut….."he uttered sadly, not waiting to see if they'd heard before continuing. "…Kabuto…."

Kakashi narrowed his eyes. Just by those words he could figure out some of what happened.

"I'm going to go chase your councillor up," he told them standing up. "I'll be back soon."

Iruka stood up as well rubbing Naruto on the back. "I'm going to go make some food okay. You must be hungry you haven't had anything since breakfast."

Naruto just nodded watching them leave the room. He rose soon after they both left. He could hear the pair speaking softly about him in the kitchen before the front door shut loudly. Looking at the clock he saw that he had slept for hours, and it was now around nine at night. Making his way to the bathroom, he immediately turned the hot water on for a shower and started to undress. He stepped in while the water was still burning his skin, and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the warm tiles. Silently tears began to fall down his face again.

Why him? Why did everything bad happen to him? He shuddered as he cried, the hot water scalding his skin, irritating it immensely, turning the tan skin red. Naruto ignored this however, the pain was not a good enough distraction. He started sobbing louder as he realised what the main source of his pain was….he missed his mom and dad. He needed them.

/

Iruka returned to Naruto's room quickly, he didn't want to leave him unattended for too long. Not in his distressed state. When he saw the boy was missing he walked quickly around the house trying to find him, as he approached the bathroom he heard the water running. More poignant than that though, was the sound of Naruto as he wept. Iruka sighed and sat with his back against the hall wall. He would give Naruto a moment alone, to let his emotions out, and then they would have to discuss options. Or rather Iruka would wait until Kakashi came home, and they would tell him together. What his guardians had decided for him. In Iruka's own mind, and his professional opinion as a psychologist, Naruto was not in the right frame of mind to make some of these important decisions by himself. He would avoid doing anything at all, content to ignore the problem as if it wasn't there…like he had been doing his entire life. It wasn't healthy and Iruka could acknowledge that he had perhaps left it too long, optimistically praying that Naruto could handle his own problems. Obviously the repressed memories were causing more issues than they were solving, and they had to resolve the situation before it got any worse.

A while later Iruka checked the time on his watch only to discover that they had been at a stand still for over half an hour, and the boy was still crying (albeit weakly). Another half an hour passed, and Iruka decided to knock on the door as it had quietened down substantially. Naruto had obviously finished his lamentation for now.

Nothing was said as Naruto came out of the bathroom with his head down, and only wearing boxer shirts, dripping. Iruka tutted and grabbed a towel rubbing him off, without a comment from the blonde and then sent him back to bed with a sandwich in hand.

Another ten minutes had passed since Iruka had forced Naruto out of the shower. In the mean time he had fallen asleep exhausted from crying. It was then Iruka received a call from Kakashi. The news was not good.

"Kabuto has disappeared."

"What?" Iruka whispered furiously. "What do you mean disappeared?"

"I checked his phones, and then went to both the school and his house. He wasn't there, and didn't answer when I called. I talked to his neighbour and she said that he had left in quite a rush."

"What does that mean?" Iruka asked nervously.

Kakashi sighed. "It means, I'm opening an investigation."

"Are we going to tell Naruto?" Iruka asked.

"I don't think we should just yet. Right now I'm just gathering information about Kabuto and his past dealings. You remember how Naruto was when the investigation and trial was happening for Mizuki. I don't think he could handle it right now."

Iruka nodded forgetting he was on the phone and Kakashi couldn't see him. Kakashi knew about this habit though and asked;

"Are you nodding your head right now?" Somewhat amused despite the serious circumstances.

"Yep." Iruka smiled a little, "Come home soon though." he added.

"I will, I should be there in another hour. I love you."

"Love you too" Iruka hung up.

/

The next day Iruka took Naruto with him to his workplace at the Konoha Mental Health Institute.

"Say good morning to Tsunade, Naruto."

"Hi old hag."

Naruto nursed the bump on his head.

"I though I told you not to call me that brat." the women said.

"Yeah, and I told you I wasn't a brat didn't I? Didn't do either of us any good."

Tsunade laughed despite herself. Naruto and Iruka were currently in Tsunade's office in an important meeting, and they still had the good humour to joke around.

"I don't see why I have to be here." Naruto huffed.

Well, that cleared up while brat was able to stuff about, she thought. Sighing Tsunade gestured for them to sit down. Pulling out a bottle of sake she slammed three cups on the table.

"Tsunade you know he is underage, why are you offering him alcohol" Iruka exclaimed.

The women just rolled her eyes. "He's probably already drunk alcohol. You know teens these days. Besides this is his last chance to actually have something decent. You know that the cafeteria in here sucks."

Naruto straightened in disbelief. "What do you mean, 'the cafeteria in here?" he turned to Iruka. "I thought you said I was getting a new therapist, not coming to the live in this nuthouse!"

The older man had the decency to look abashed. Especially when his boss turned to him as well from where she was pouring shots.

"You didn't tell him?" she asked incredulously, despite already figuring this was what the psychologist had done. She had to at least pretend to chide him for his actions.

Iruka just took one of the glasses and sipped at it. "Well, I meant to tell him when Kakashi came home. You know so we could do it together….but he was caught up at work again."

Naruto sunk in his chair muttering to himself about selfish bastards. He quickly grabbed a shot for himself and slammed it down before Iruka could grab it. It burnt his throat on the way down, but it was worth it. He needed something to help with the shock.

"So let me get this straight. Not only am I going to have to get a new therapist, its going to be one of the nut jobs working here?" he questioned sounding incredulous.

Both the adults nodded their head.

"Not only that though, I have to stay at this hell hole?" he continued "with all the freaks and nut jobs?"

Iruka frowned. "Don't call them that Naruto. Just because they have problems doesn't mean that they're 'freaks' and/or 'nut jobs'"

Tsunade interjected trying to stop them arguing. "Don't forget that you're just like them kid."

"I'm not crazy." Naruto snarled.

"I didn't say you were," Tsunade said calmly. "This is a mental health institution. We do not use the word crazy here."

As Naruto continued to huff and complain as Tsunade and Iruka turned to more important matters.

"Who do you think he should have as a room-mate?" Tsunade asked "I want to place him with someone from your roster. That means that it has to be someone on the same ward."

Iruka nodded his head accepting the parameters. "There are two free spots. Neither Kiba or Sasuke have a room-mate. I don't think Kiba would be suitable though, they'd never go to sleep. They're both too excitable."

"Sasuke it is then, though you know he won't be happy about it."

"I think it will be good for him to have to interact with someone like Naruto. God knows, he could use a little brightening up."

Naruto had finished with his muttering by now and had sunk sullenly into his chair, glaring at the both of them.

"Did you bring a bag?" the women asked Iruka, who nodded.

"What the hell?" Naruto shouted, he hadn't even noticed the small clothes bag Iruka had carried in with them. "You nicked my clothes?"

"Not all of them." Iruka noted. "Just the safe ones."

"What do you mean 'safe'?" Naruto settled down a bit.

"Well to be honest most of your clothes I couldn't bring. We don't allow chains on clothes, I never noticed how many pants you had with those, by the way. Also no shredded material, or metal."

"Boy are you emo or what?" Tsunade snickered.

Naruto growled. "Its not emo, you hag…its punk." he crossed his arms.

"Sure it is." she laughed. "There are some other things that are compulsory at this hospital just so you know."

Instantly Naruto's apprehension increased tenfold, he didn't have to wear a straight jacket did he?

"…Like what?" he asked slowly.

" This bracelet for one." She handed a small silver band that she pulled out from a draw. "Its got your identification tag on it, so don't lose it."

"_Great" _he said sarcastically latching it on tight.

"Would you prefer a collar?" Tsunade joked.

"NO!" Naruto shouted immediately, jumping up, and scaring the adults with how frightened he looked hearing that comment.

"I was just kidding, brat." The women informed him softly. Watching him carefully as he sat back down hesitantly.

Iruka changed the subject quickly to rid the room of the awkward silence. He would make sure to talk to his boss about this later.

"Another compulsory item, is just for people under my care. You have to write in a diary at least once everyday."

Naruto groaned. This was just _Fantastic._

/

"Did you hear that there was a new patient coming into today?"

Sasuke grunted at the boy next to him. He flipped his dark bangs out from in front of his face.

"I hope that he is fun, we need some happy to make up for all your emo."

Ignoring the other boy, Sasuke moved to stand up when he heard something that actually elicited his attention.

"What?" he asked quickly interrupting the other boy who was still rambling.

"Excuse me?" the boy, Haku asked.

"What did you just say?" Sasuke growled

Haku gave him an odd look. "…I hope he's hot?"

"Before that."

"um…I heard that he could be your room-mate." he said.

Sasuke hissed, he quickly sped out of the room, not bothering to say goodbye. Haku waved at him as he left anyway. Making his way to the staff-room he spat foul words out from under his breath.

He looked around as he entered the room, looking for someone of importance, spotting Tsunade's assistant, Shizune, he strode up to her.

"I don't want a room-mate." he snarled at her.

She just turned to face him calmly. "Hello to you too Mr. Uchiha."

"I don't…want…a…room-mate." he forced out between his teeth.

"Well, neither of us make that decision." she said. "Now can you please go back to the ward, you know you are not allowed in here."

"Hn." was his typical response and walked out of the room. Still not content with Shizune's answer though he stalked towards the warden's office. He stood outside wondering whether Tsunade was drunk already or not. He would have more of a chance to protest and get his way, if she was. Raising his fist up to knock he was startled when the door opened in front of him. Sasuke's own practicing psychologist stalked out, a worried frown on his face.

"Oh, hi Sasuke." he stopped, only noticing his ward right before he walked into him. "How are you?" he asked distractedly.

"Bad." Sasuke actually deigned him with a response, although stony. Iruka's head immediately shot up from where it was staring at the ground.

"Bad?" he asked worried

"I don't want…or need…a room-mate." Sasuke continued.

Sighing Iruka gestured for him to follow as he made his way down the hall. Reaching the patient common room he waved at a few patients before sitting both of them on the couch.

"Sasuke." he started "Why do you not want a room-mate?"

"He'll be an annoying idiot." Sasuke growled.

Iruka sighed, Sasuke's sociopath attitude was the only road block then. He leant down so he could look the boy straight in the eye.

"Sasuke, I want you to understand…" he paused to see if he was listening. Seeing the slight look of concentration on the dark-haired boy he knew he was. "…The new patient, is someone very important to me."

Sasuke looked up a bit surprised. "Important?" he asked.

"Not just to me," Iruka added. "To Kakashi as well."

That stopped Sasuke in his tracks. Kakashi was as close to liking a person he had come in a while. Instead of hating him, he was just irritated most of the time.

Kakashi had defended him at an important moment in the past so Sasuke owed him. He supposed for Kakashi and Iruka's sake, he could at least put up with the fool for a while.

"Hn." he just grunted making Iruka smile a little in understanding of his acceptance..

"Thankyou Sasuke."

/

"So why did you send Iruka out?"

Tsunade looked at the small boy that was questioning her. She remembered when Iruka first came to work at her institution and he would bring the boy with him. She hadn't gotten along with him at first, but now they were like family. She never thought that his problems would get bad enough to warrant him becoming a patient here. Especially considering it had been ten years since they had discovered the abused six year old, and he had been placed in Kakashi and Iruka's care. It was so sad.

"Old lady!" Naruto shouted.

"What, you brat?" she yelled right back.

"I asked if why you sent Iruka out." he smirked. "But you're obviously getting a bit hard of hearing in your dotage."

"Dotage?" She shrieked, She prided herself on her youthful looks and the boy knew it. "Isn't that word a bit advanced for you?" she sneered.

He opened his mouth in response but she just shoved another cup of sake into his hands.

"I was just getting him to organise some things for me, while I talked to you one on one." she explained in retort to his original line of enquiry.

He gave her a suspicious look as if knowing where this investigation was going. He took a big mouth-full of the sake and then waited for the onslaught.

"What do you want to know?" he asked.

"If I ask, will you tell me anything?" she just fired back.

"Depends what it is." he stipulated.

"Was it about Mizuki?" she asked him, watching as he winced at the name.

He avoided her gaze, wondering how much he could tell her with her going mental on his ass.

"Not really." he admitted hesitantly.

She attempted to hide her shock and worry at this. That meant that the incident with Mizuki that was investigated and went to court, was not the only traumatic event that the child went through.

"Can we just…not talk about it?" he asked

She nodded, she could accept that for now. He had a bad enough day as it was, she didn't want to add more to it.

Tsunade grabbed the bottle and chugged the rest of it down. Naruto frowned at her, he wanted more, he wasn't even buzzed yet. Stupid alcohol tolerance.

"You're lucky I made time for you brat." Tsunade once again to it upon herself to break their quiet time. "Usually we don't spend so long on an orientation. But since it was you…."

The blonde just rolled his eyes. "So I'm like a teacher's pet now am I?"

She leaned over and smacked him in the head. "No, you idiot, I was saying you are lucky to have people you care about."

"Sure." Naruto just muttered under his breath.

"While we're on the subject; do you have a girlfriend yet?" she smirked at him.

"No." Naruto grimaced. Will the interrogation never end?

"…..a boyfriend?" she winked at him.

"NO!" he shouted turning red and looking away, his cheeks puffed out.

"Do you want one? I could set you up." she continued with her teasing, finding his blush hilarious.

/

"This is the cafeteria. Each meal usually goes for an hour and then you are given some free time in the common room I showed you before. Breakfast is at nine; lunch is at twelve; dinner is at seven. If you miss a meal due to a doctors appointment, or something similar, you can arrange with a handler to have a snack."

Naruto frowned looking around. The eating area was not that big, that meant that hopefully there wouldn't be too many people. Usually he didn't mind crowds, but when you're in the loony bin, it might be a blessing. There was only so much crazy a person could take.

"This is another one of the bathrooms, a boys one. As I've already explained each corridor will either have a boy or girls bathroom, but they are alternated from each corridor so they are easy to find. The exception are the dorms where they have both."

Naruto nodded, bored. His tour guide was extremely boring and he hadn't even seen any of the other patients yet.

"If you are somebody who purges, or are suicidal then the handlers reserve the right to be present as you use the bathrooms." the man, Ebisu, sounded like he was just reading all this information from straight out of a book.

"Do you look after my ward?" Naruto asked him quickly before he could continue talking.

The man gave him a disgusted look. "Of course not. I wouldn't work with you perverted teens. I work with the younger children."

Naruto just raised an eyebrow, as the man readjusted his glasses. Thank God, he though to himself.

"Where is everyone else?" he questioned.

"Either at group therapy or outside I suppose." the man responded without interest.

He hastened his step to avoid more discussion with the boy. He did not seem to fond of him, for reasons Naruto could not comprehend. He didn't think he had met the man before, if he had, he would probably remember someone as obnoxious as he was. Maybe he was like this with everyone?

"Finally…" Ebisu sighed as they reached yet another identical corridor. "This is the dorms. Your room is number five, and you share with a boy called, Sasuke Uchiha." he motioned towards a door. "Chuck your bag in and I will take you back to Tsunade."

Hesitantly Naruto entered the room. Looking around he saw that it wasn't as bad as he had though it would be. It was painted a light blue but with a navy feature wall. There were two fairly large beds arranged so that neither of them were against the wall. They weren't even those nasty white, metal beds he expected but rather nice wooden ones, stained dark. Overall it was pleasant and calming.

"Hurry up. All I told you to do was to put your damn bag down. Surely it doesn't take that long?"

Naruto scrunched his noise up as he heard the obnoxious voice of the man he had been following the past hour. Though he just rolled his eyes and exited the room, being careful to close the door behind him. Not bothering to deign the insufferable man with a response.

As they were walking down the corridor, the blonde boy was so busy in though ( contemplating the though of having to live here for who knows how long) and did not see the person he was about to bump into until he actually did.

"Sorry." he muttered from the ground.

A hand appeared in front of his face, and by the size of it, he knew it must be the person who had bumped into him. It was a child's hands, they were definitely too small to be Ebisu's.

"That's alright." the mystery person said.

Naruto looked up and was shocked with the sight that met his eyes. In front of him, was someone that was most certainly a boy, however his clothes….were undoubtedly those of a girl.

"Why are you wearing girls clothes?" he asked immediately out of astonishment.

The boy pulled Naruto up and again surprised him by chuckling at his comment.

"You know you are only the fourth person to recognise me as a boy, and not a girl." he said.

"Really?" he asked.

"Yep…Well anyway, I'm Haku and it was a pleasure to meet you…."

"Naruto."

"I'll hope we'll be friends" Haku continued.

"Enough talking." Ebisu interrupted them. "Hurry up and come along." he added without waiting for an answer as he skulked off.

"Don't worry about him, he only shows the newbie's around. You won't see him around very much after today." Haku reassured the blonde.

"Thank God." Naruto laughed waving as he walked off.

Naruto really hoped that they would be friends. Haku was a very pleasant person, and first impressions were important for Naruto. He didn't seem to crazy, as well, which is an upside….that is, apart from dressing like a girl.

It seemed to take ages for them to walk all the way back to Tsunade's office. Ebisu stopped quite a few times to reprimand younger patients and talk to a few teachers and handlers. Naruto just snorted and rolled his eyes; of course he couldn't take the time to do the things he wanted for himself (like checking out his new room, and making a new friend). Ebisu however, could take all the time in the world. Fucking hypocrite.

Naruto was glad to see the back of him as he entered the old hags office once more. She motioned for him to sit with one hand as she hurriedly signed the documents that Shizune was passing her with the other. The blonde boy knew better then to ask if the woman was going to read them, because he was the type of person to learn from his mistakes. The last time he had asked a related question was the day that he could no longer look at whisky or suspenders the same ever again.

Eventually the pair ran out of papers, and Tsunade lowered her pen back to the desk. Slowly she leaned her elbows on the desk and clasped her hand together. Speaking through said hands, with her eyes peering directly into Naruto's, she asked;

"So…..are you ready to meet the rest?"

/


	3. Chapter 3

_**Do you have short term memory problems or something? I just told you in the last chapter that I do not own Naruto. **_

_Eventually the pair ran out of papers, and Tsunade lowered her pen back to the desk. Slowly she leaned her elbows on the desk and clasped her hand together. Speaking through said hands, with her eyes peering directly into Naruto's, she asked;_

"_So…..are you ready to meet the rest?"_

/

Chapter Three

Naruto met her with question with a blank expression. He sat staring at her, as if to ask if she was serious about that question. That was until he saw she was waiting for an answer in which case he simply made himself more comfortable in his chair.

"Nope." he responded succinctly.

She growled under her breath at him. Idiotic, disrespectful, little shit! She thought to herself. In reality she just smiled, a bit forcefully, and asked;

"…and why would that be?"

He turned his head the other way and just shrugged his shoulders. His face taking on a sullen expression.

"Oh, I see…" she started taunting him. "You're sulking."

He immediately turned to face her once again. "I am not sulking!" he snarled.

"Looks like it to me." she argued.

"Fine, let's fucking go then." he said to prove her wrong, not realising she had just manipulated him into doing so.

Shaking her head, she motioned to Naruto and Shizune to follow her. She then marched out of her office, straight to the common room that Naruto had been shown before by Ebisu. It was more lively now, with around ten people inhabiting it; playing games, watching television, and what not.

Silence fell upon the room as soon as Tsunade walked in. Even the sound from the TV seemed to dwindle in volume as everyone started at their group.

"Good afternoon everyone." The director greeted them all cheerfully. Though her reception was not all friendly, only about half of the kids smiled and waved or said hello back to her. The rest just scowled or grunted in response.

"As some of you may have heard, we have a new boy in today. His name is Naruto Uzumaki and I expect all of you to treat him as you would yourself." she instructed. "Except for you Kiba…no more biting."

Naruto shot her a glance at this, and was surprised to find her smiling in good humour. This Kiba character didn't actually bite himself did he?

"I'll see you all later." Tsunade decided that a brief talk was better; she wanted to get back to her sake. 

"Be good brat." she muttered to the blonde, slapping him on the shoulder to signal her departure.

This left the poor boy standing alone, as Shizune followed her boss out of the room, and staring at a group of mentally unstable stranger. 

"Um, hi." he said shyly raising a hand.

This seemed to trigger a reaction as approximately two thirds of the group turned back to what they were doing before, while the rest gathered around him. They ushered him quickly to an unoccupied couch.

Taking his time to observe the group; Naruto was surprised that despite how normal they had looked at first glance, they each had certain things holding them apart.

The first to welcome him was a skinny boy wearing a bright green spandex suit, and was sporting a bowl cut.

Upon opening his mouth Naruto noticed another significant factor defining this boy. "Hello my youthful new friend." the boy exclaimed. "I am Lee, and I swear never to jeopardise this relationship by going against the fair lady Tsunade, and not treating you as I do myself."

Done with his rant Lee quickly snatched him up into a tight embrace, and laughed raucously. 

The other two just ignored the exuberant boy and reach out a hand each to shake.

"Ignore Lee, he's just excitable." the first girl advised him. "I'm Sakura and this is Ino." she said jerking a thumb toward the other girl.

Naruto smiled at the pair, before taking their hands in his at the same time and shaking furiously. He liked the look of this pair, Sakura had the best pink dye job he had ever seem and Ino's blonde hair was so shiny. Though Sakura was wearing too much pink, and Ino too much purple in their clothes. They sure could talk as well. Sitting in between them on the couch as he was, Naruto had to keep moving his head back and forth between them, soon creating a crick in his neck.

"What game are you playing friend?" Lee asked seeing the odd action.

"I'm just paying attention to both of them." Naruto explained a bit confused. Wasn't it obvious?

"I never though to do that!" the excitable boy exclaimed and quickly copied Naruto's earlier actions.

"What's he doing?" Sakura asked Naruto, not noticing that he had stopped listening to them.

"I do not know." he admitted slowly.

Lee looked like he was watching a very fast game of tennis, his head moving this way and that. The others just resolved to ignore him for now.

"Am I allowed to ask why you're in here?" Naruto asked nervously once they came to a lapse in the conversation.

The girls laughed at him. "You can ask whatever you want." Ino informed him. "Whether we answer or not is the question." Sakura added in her two cents.

"I'll go first." Lee immediately volunteered himself, apparently having been listening to the conversation. "I have dependant personality disorder, ADHD, and obsessive-compulsive disorder."

Naruto nodded "That makes sense." he said

Sakura raised her hand "My go…I have a split personality, but the doctors say that it may be my real personality kept in my head because of an extreme anxiety disorder."

Furrowing his eyebrows Naruto frowned. "So they don't actually know what's wrong with you?"

"Nope." the pink-haired girl said brightly

"Then why are you here?" he asked curiously.

"Because my other personality is rather violent." she said still smiling.

Ino snorted. "Yeah…._rather_….frigging bitch punched me in the head for eating the chip she wanted."

Naruto laughed. He supposed it wasn't that funny, but he couldn't help it. 

"What about you then?" he asked.

"There's nothing wrong with me at all." Ino told him, sitting up proudly.

"Yeah right." Sakura sniffed.

"Fine…I've apparently got; anorexia nervosa, and exercise bulimia." Ino admitted.

"I heard Genma saying something about dyspareunia, but I'm waiting on a dictionary." Sakura whispered to Naruto smirking glancing slyly in Ino's direction.

"So how about you?" Ino asked moving closer in interest. "It must be something interesting if Tsunade introduced you."

"You mean she doesn't usually?" he asked

"Nope." the trio said in unison

"Stupid old hag." he muttered under his breath.

"Well?" Lee asked all three of them apparently on the edge of their seats.

Naruto ducked his head shyly not used to all the attention. Usually when people concentrated on him this much it was always a negative thing.

He cleared his throat softly before starting. "I have post traumatic stress disorder, and occasional paranoid personality disorder as a result of that; also, ADHD and they think maybe schizotypy. They haven't sent me to a psychologist here yet though. That's what Iruka diagnosed me as."

He glanced up at them in apprehension, looking at their wide eyes and open mouths. He knew he shouldn't have told them, he just knew that they would reject him like the others at his school had, even though they didn't actually know about his condition.

"That's harsh." Sakura whispered recomposing herself.

"Oh my youthful friend you have had it hard." Lee shouted standing up and adopting a fairly fantastic good guy pose. "Do not worry though, I will stand by you."

"Yep, don't worry Blondie. I'm sure they'll fix you" Ino agreed.

Sakura smirked. "Who are you calling Blondie, Blondie?" she taunted.

At that moment Naruto decided that maybe this place wouldn't be as bad as he though it was going to be.

/

This place was _definitely _as bad as he though it was going to be.

Five minutes after he and his new friends had finished their chat, the entire collection of patients in the common room had been called to dinner. Naruto, who didn't realise how late it had gotten, suddenly remembered he had not had any lunch. As a result his stomach was growling in anticipation. Entering the cafeteria they where told to line up and each received the same portion of food, and the exact same meal. Naruto stared down at the plate in disbelief once he sat down.

"What's wrong?" Sakura asked sitting down next to him. Worried by the depressed look on his face.

"Tsunade Baa-chan tried to get me drunk so I wouldn't notice that they don't serve ramen…" he whined 

Sakura just stared at him before she burst out laughing.

"What's so funny?" One of the boys Naruto hadn't been introduced to yet asked sitting with them.

"Naruto reckons that the director tried to get him drunk so that he wouldn't notice that they don't have ramen on the menu."

This comment caused the brown-haired boy to crack up. He slammed his fist down on the table barking. Not laughing, actually barking. Naruto raised his eyebrow at Sakura who just shrugged. Figuring he'd get an explanation later Naruto turned back to his food, ignoring the bland taste and awful texture.

"Are those scars or tattoos on your face?" Naruto heard the boy ask him all of a sudden. This caused Naruto to frown, it was true he had three parallel scars running across each side of his face but he did not really like to draw attention to them. Glancing at the boy again he met a grinning face and caught sight of two triangular marks coming down from his eye. He smirked as well. 

"I could ask the same about yours." he commented, understanding where his curiosity came from. Its not everyday you see other people with marks on their face.

"Name's Kiba." the boy introduced himself jutting a thumb back at himself and grinning. "…and mine are tattoos."

"Naruto….scars." he returned the favour.

"No shit." Kiba said poking at Naruto's cheeks. "How'd you get them?"

At this question Naruto froze up. He didn't know how to answer, didn't even know if he could. Seeing how tense the blonde was and observing his eyes darting round frantically in an attempt to escape Sakura intervened.

"Mind your own business dog boy." she glared meaningfully at him.

"Alright, just curious." he said almost sighing in relief when Naruto relaxed a little. The new kid was obviously more sensitive then he looked. "Want to know why I got mine?" Kiba propositioned.

Naruto nodded, wanting to change the topic, more than he wanted to know about the tattoos.

"Well my family comes from these kennels right? Inuzuka kennels, real famous. I figured since my canines aren't as big as the other dogs, I'd get extra fangs on my face, to try and scare the more vicious dogs away. Didn't work very well though."

Naruto had to restrain himself from chuckling.

"So you think you're a dog?"

Kiba shot him a look. "Why does everyone think that? I'm really a dog, can't you tell? Is everyone blind?" he complained angrily. "Why else would I live in the kennels?"

"Why are you in here if you are a dog" Naruto asked him.

That shut him up… for a second; "Fucked if I know." Was the answer he decided on.

For a while after that, there was silence as everyone continued to finish their meals in peace. Though Naruto did get in the odd grumble now and then about it.

Once people started to finish everyone began to slowly ebb out of the room. Naruto was one of the last people to finish and as soon as he rose he was pulled to the side by a handler. From previous visits with Iruka, Naruto new this man to be Genma. The blonde was bit nervous about being alone with this man. That was as Kakashi called him a total pervert, and that was saying something coming from his mouth.

"I though I should tell you that you can go straight to your room tonight. Normally you have an hour or so after eating and taking your medicine, but seeing as you are waiting on new prescriptions. You might want to go straight to bed." the man advised him.

Naruto viewed him suspiciously, however he couldn't find anything wrong with the mans suggestion so he just shrugged his shoulders and walked after him towards his room.

"Have you had a nice time so far?" Genma asked him as they got closer to his room.

"I suppose, its different from what I though it would be."

Genma just chuckled "That's what everyone says." he told him

"Goodnight." Naruto said as soon as he reach his new room.

He opened the door and turned to walk through it only to feel a hand grabbing one of his arse cheeks firmly. He knew he shouldn't have turned his back on this man. His eyebrow twitching, he turned back around making the hand fall from its place.

"Do that again." he threatened. "and I'll make sure that its Iruka who gets to you first."

Genma swallowed at this, he knew how protective the normally shy man was of the child. "I couldn't help it. You've got the cutest, most pert butt, I have ever seen."

Naruto just snorted and brushed off the perverted compliment by slamming his door in the mans face. He quickly leaned on the door trying to slow his racing heart, and force the panic down.

Today had been too weird, he was just going to ignore that last part. That would probably be for the best.

/

The next day Naruto woke up bright and early to the sound of someone knocking at his door. Without opening his eyes he rolled around like a cat on the bed, stretching, before he rolled over to get out of bed….and slammed straight into the wall.

"Ow!" he yelped bolting up straight in the bed, rubbing his nose. 

Slowly his mouth dropped into a 'O' in comprehension. He wasn't in his normal bedroom anymore, he was at the nut house, and his bed was now on the opposite side as it would be normally.

The knock on the door came again followed by a loud call of "Breakfast." by a voice Naruto knew already.

Standing up, successfully this time, Naruto made his way to the door and opened it, peeking out.

Dark brown eyes met his blue ones as he looked out the door to see Kurenai, one of the therapists at the Institute.

"Good morning Naruto." she greeted him pulling him into a hug.

"Hi Kurenai." Naruto mumbled into her breasts.

"I came down to get you for breakfast, cause I have a group therapy with you afterwards. I also wanted to see how you were doing."

Naruto sighed. "Can I get dressed first?" he asked.

"Oh, I suppose." she said jokingly letting him go. "But do it quickly." she warned as he shut the door behind himself.

As he began to get dressed for the day, Naruto noticed he had missed his roommate while he had been asleep. He supposed that he must be an early riser, if he woke up early enough to leave before breakfast.

Soon enough Kurenai and Naruto were walking down the corridors, talking about how they had been. Naruto was happy to hear that she would be having a baby, and made her promise that he would get to hold him or her as soon as they were born. Kurenai and Asuma had become very close to both Naruto and Iruka after he had started working there. They would often come over for dinner, or to go out.

"Sit wherever you want, I'm sure one of the other kids can take you to group when you're done." Kurenai told him when they reached the dining room.

Naruto just nodded. He grabbed a few pancakes and sat down at a free spot, next to Lee. 

"How are you this youthful day, my friend?" Lee questioned loudly as soon as he took his seat.

Naruto smiled. "Good, and how about you."

Lee immediately launched into a tirade about youthfulness, kittens, and spirits. None of which Naruto paid any real attention too. But he still nodded and smiled all the same.

Soon enough Naruto finished his breakfast and was left with nothing to do but listen to Lee. He was slightly grateful when the girls sat down across from them mumbling a tired 'morning'.

Naruto noticed that Ino had ,much less food on her plate than Sakura (who's portion was smaller again than his own had been). He supposed that made sense though considering her condition.

"I was wondering." Naruto began, "Do you know who my roommate is? I missed him last night."

"I was told it was Sasuke." Ino said after finishing her mouthful of juice.

"What?" Sakura all but shouted. "That's so unfair…."

"How so?" Lee asked curiously.

"I wish I could room with him." she whined, "He's so hot!"

Ino just rolled her eyes at the pink-haired girl. "…And he's a boy. So no shit you're not going to room with him."

"What's he like." Naruto asked excitedly.

"Kind of quite," Ino said. "But mysterious, and aloof."

Sakura sighed. "And he's uber hot."

Naruto nodded his head. He figured that he should ask someone else, and resolve not to talk to Sakura about him again. She was obviously crushing on him so bad, it turned her mind to mush.

"We should head to group therapy now." Lee interrupted his thoughts. "If I do not get to the room first, I swear that I will do one thousand push-ups."

The energetic boy surprised Naruto by jumping up and running out of the room as fast as his legs could carry him. Which was pretty damn fast.

"Does he do that often?" Naruto asked the others.

They nodded and sighed sweat- dropping at their friends behaviour. At a more ordinary pace they got up and also made their way to their therapy room.

"Do we have assigned seats, or can we just sit our asses anywhere?" Naruto asked, not wanting to make any mistakes on what was officially his first day. Not just for the sake of it, but he figured if he made a mistake that one of the other patients might take offence and go nutso on him. He's seen it happen in real life, so he figured their reactions would just be more extreme here.

"No," Ino answered, "We are encouraged to sit in different places occasionally, especially since some of us have obsessive compulsive, and the therapists don't want us making to many new habits or routines."

Naruto nodded, that made sense. They were almost there where Naruto felt himself bump into something solid. He had been thinking about anything else he should ask to prevent making a fool of himself. Obviously, he had been thinking too hard.

"Sorry." he smiled apologetically looking up at the boy he had bumped into. He didn't believe they had met before. "I'm Naruto." he introduced himself.

"Gaara." red hair and green eyes said after a moment.

Ino and Sakura stared on in shock. Apparently this was not the reaction they were expecting from the other boy. Sensing this the boy sent them an evil glare and they walked off saying nothing. Naruto just observed everything, testing the waters. Before deciding he should jump straight in. 

"That wasn't very nice." he admonished the person who was until a minute ago, a stranger.

Gaara listed what appeared to Naruto to be an inexistent eyebrow at him. Whoever this new kid was, he was a bit rash speaking to someone, especially Gaara like that. Deciding not to deign the idiot with an answer Gaara just shrugged.

"Well I'm sorry I bumped into you anyway." Naruto apologised again before following the girls into the room.

Gaara followed him after a moment, an odd look on his face. He sat down across the room from Naruto and continued to stare at him, even as the others filed in.

As they last person filed in the room was thrown into an awkward silence as they waited for Kurenai to arrive. Even the occasional whimper from Kiba was not enough to break the it. Finally though, the women entered the room with a cardboard box in hand. Many of the patients stared curiously at this box and Kurenai, sensing this, automatically slammed it down, right in the centre of her desk.

"Today's lesson for us all is going to be about…. 'communication'" She announced dramatically.

Almost everyone growled, or hissed, this had the potential to be _very_ cliché. Naruto just rolled his eyes. He had lived with a psychologist for over half of his life, so all his relationships were about communication. He'd had it beaten into him, whether it was completely successful or not is another matter entirely.

"First I want us all to inform each other what our names are. This may be redundant for most of you but I'm sure others would appreciate it." she instructed.

Naruto was grateful of her silent effort to help him, though he knew it wouldn't fool anybody…except maybe Lee.

Kurenai then pointed to the first person to her left. This happened to be someone that Naruto had not yet been introduced to yet, so he watched on with interest.

"Shino, you can start first." she said, "and then we'll rotate around the room moving left."

"Shino Aburame." the boy grunted staring rather apathetically at everyone in the room through glasses covered eyes. 

Naruto observed the boy for a moment. He wore a big hoody, this stopped you from seeing his figure and also half of his face. His glasses were also darkly tinted so you couldn't even make out the colour of his eyes.

By this time the rest of the group has their eyes collectively fixed on the next person. This person Naruto had not even _seen_ before, she wasn't in the common room he had been introduced the week before. She had short dark hair which kept falling in front of her eyes, and she looked very timid.

"H-Hinata Hyuuga…" she stated nervously keeping her eyes firmly locked on the ground.

They went by one by one after this; Kiba, Naruto, Sakura, Ino. Then a boy named Shikamaru who only waved his arm lazily when he drawled his name. Next was Neji, also a Hyuuga, making Naruto wonder if he was related to Hinata. Names flashed by quickly and Naruto hoped that he would be able to remember them all; Sai, Lee, TenTen, Chouji. 

The last two names that were spoken happened to be the two most angry of those in the whole room. The first was Sasuke, who basically choked out his name, obviously not wanting to partake of the activity, and the last was Gaara, who despite saying his name still stared at Naruto.

Kurenai seemed pleased with the results of that activity, though the reason why eluded Naruto. She circled around the room and sat with the mystery box on her lap.

"For the next activity…we will be passing this box around the group. What happens is that you pick out one of the pieces of paper inside, and then we all answer the question on that piece of paper." she said.

"Seems easy enough, right?" she asked, a few people nodded in response.

"Now I want you to know that I did not personally choose, any of these questions. They are composed by an impartial referee outside of the institute, and each question is asked to gain knowledge and build a profile about people. As an act of trust, I will be answering these questions too. Hopefully we'll learn to communicate effectively, even when it is not n easy task."

She waved her hand, dismissively before saying; "Enough with the talking, let's just get on with it."

Slowly she picked out a piece of paper herself and unfolded it.

"_What is your favourite colour?"_

Naruto could almost see the tension drain from everyone in the room when they heard the question. He himself was glad, he had been expecting them to be horrible, and designed to bring up traumatic events for the sake of the therapists understanding. That could still come true however, for now he was going to concentrate on answering the question.

For the most part of the answers were obvious. Sakura liked pink; Ino liked purple; and Lee loved green. There was however a disproportionate number of people who liked red in the room. This got Naruto down, especially as he was the only one who liked orange the most.

The next question was a bit more difficult to answer.

"_What do you want to be when you are older?"_ Shino pulled out of the box.

"An Entomologist." he answered immediately in his dispassionate voice.

"…what the hell is that?" Kiba barked at him, scratching behind his head in a dog-like manner.

"Someone who studies bugs." Shino answered

Ino snorted and she leaned over to whisper to Naruto. "He's obsessed with bugs. I heard he came here because he was trying to interbreed bugs and humans."

"I heard that he almost killed someone for stepping on his favourite breed." Sakura added.

Hinata was next and her face was slowly turning read from the strain on everyone's eyes being on her.

"I…um…I don't k-know." She stuttered out.

Kurenai just smiled at her "That's okay, a lot of people have no clue what they are going to be. I didn't know I'd become a therapist. I wanted to be a special effects specialist in movies."

The more Naruto thought about it, the more he realised that he was one of those people who didn't know what they wanted to be as well. He was a bit ashamed at that, because one of the things Iruka always had to remind him of, was that it was the future that mattered; not the past. He obviously needed to pay more attention to the man.

"What about you Kiba?" Kurenai continued.

"I want to be alpha male." Kiba announced proudly, sticking his chest out.

"That's not exactly what it meant." Kurenai told him, sweat dropping.

"Well that's what I want to be." he said stubbornly, she just nodding in resignation.

As the 'game' went on Naruto got bored and his gaze started to roam randomly around the room. He just stared at the white walled room, and the dark timber chairs, much better then his high school aesthetics. As he was not really paying attention, he almost missed it, but when he heard Gaara started to speak he tuned in.

"I don't have a future. A Jinchuuriki doesn't deserve one." the red-head said in an unemotional voice.

Narto knew that he had heard that word before, it was obvious no-one else had though as they were looking on in confusion. They looked at Kurenai to provide insight, which she didn't have. She turned her head to face the clock on the wall shotting Gaara another passing glance of worry before dismissing them.

"I think we can continue this later, morning tea will be soon."

/

The rest of the day was spent either in the common room, or in separate therapy session with a private councillor. It was not exactly what Naruto had been prepared for; no psychotic episode every hour, and no real drama. The exception to that rule was, of course, Lee and his hyperactive disorder. Another thing about the institute that Naruto learnt that day was that every time they had a shower (and it was communal showering) they either had to have another patient, or a handler with them. Now Naruto wasn't a shy boy by nature, but that was still going to be an uncomfortable situation.

Lunch and then dinner soon past and Naruto was once again sent to bed early, as he had not had a private therapy session yet; and was therefore not prescribed any medications yet. He walked to his room in silence, contemplating the days events. The only thing he was left wondering was what his roommate was like. They hadn't had a chance to talk today either, so Naruto had not once spoken to his peer. From the looks of him though he didn't look to friendly at all. He hadn't smiled at any one for the whole day, and that to Naruto ( as someone who smiled tremendous amounts) was a strong indicator of a bad attitude. 

Naruto was so busy thinking about this he didn't even notice he had arrived at is room until the door smashed into his face.

"Holy Fuck!" he shouted grabbing his nose which was stinging from the impact of the hard wooden door.

A black haired boy walked out and smirked at him. Naruto recalled this boy was Sasuke, and was in fact his roommate.

"What the hell?" he asked angrily.

"Hn…" the boy just grunted, the smirk never leaving his face before his added; "…Dobe."

Naruto opinion of his roommate was set at that moment, the guy was a complete BASTARD.

Then just because the other guy had seen fit to, his responded in kind.

"Teme…"

/

**Rei; "…...meow…."**


	4. Chapter 4

_Naruto was so busy thinking about this he didn't even notice he had arrived at is room until the door smashed into his face._

"_Holy Fuck!" he shouted grabbing his nose which was stinging from the impact of the hard wooden door._

_A black haired boy walked out and smirked at him. Naruto recalled this boy was Sasuke, and was in fact his roommate._

"_What the hell?" he asked angrily._

"_Hn…" the boy just grunted, the smirk never leaving his face before his added; "…Dobe."_

_Naruto opinion of his roommate was set at that moment, the guy was a complete BASTARD._

_Then just because the other guy had seen fit to, his responded in kind._

"_Teme…"_

**The Institution- Chapter four**

The next few weeks were really quite hard for the poor blonde boy. This was because, although he had an advantage by knowing many of the staff, the other children there were not all so welcoming as Lee, Sakura, and Ino had been. Many of them were nice enough, Naruto supposed but he could not for the life of him figure out how to approach them. Some of them like Kiba, the boy who thought he was a dog, were friendly and willing to talk and accept him….but they obviously didn't have proper social skills. Kiba was always sniffing at people, invading their personal space; and another boy called Sai was constantly making inappropriate comments.

The main reason that Naruto wasn't finding his time at the Institution enjoyable was his room mate. No matter how much of an effort that Naruto put into being friends with the guy, he was getting nowhere.

As much as he hated the dark-haired boy though, Naruto did not hold it against him. He was obviously in the nut house for a reason, it was only fair that he was a bit strange.

As a result of this reasoning the blonde boy was prepared to give out exactly what he got. If Sasuke was a bitch to him, he'd be the same. If Sasuke hit him, he'd definitely punch back; and if Sasuke was nice to him…he'd obviously be nice back.

It was three weeks into his stay at the Institution, when he finally got the new therapist Iruka had informed him about. Although Naruto wasn't looking forward to having his past brought up again; he was excited about having something new to fill up his days with. So far he had therapy with Iruka once every second day, and group therapy once a day, except on weekends. It wouldn't be so bad if their common room was any good…but, of course, it wasn't. The TV only had the basic channels through a set top box, and they didn't have a DVD player at all. They occasionally had one brought in for them, when they had been good enough to deserve a late curfew. None of the movies were any good though. There were some other activities they were allowed to do with supervision, Kiba told him, but they had been suspended for the moment, as the patients had been getting more inventive with the equipment.

Naruto had just finished breakfast, when he was instructed to follow Shizune to his therapist's new office. Upon entering the first thing he noticed, was that there was a large amount of red silk and enormous bookshelves lining the wall. He stared up at them in amazement, not even the bookshelves in the library at his school held so many books. All of a sudden he felt a large hand clapped him on the shoulder. His knees buckled under the weight and he craned his head around to see who had done it.

On seeing who had a hold of him however he face split into a grin.

"Old man!" he exclaimed turning and jumping onto the man.

The person in question was a male, approximately 50. He was a hirsute man with a large, stocky figure. His most noticeable feature were the large tattoos running parallel down his face.

"Haven't seen you in a while kid have I?" the man noted smiling "When was it?"

Naruto laughed pre-emptively before answering "It was when Tsunade kicked you out for bringing porn in for patients to read"

He laughed a big booming laugh at this. "Well, the mentally unstable deserve to enjoy themselves as well don't you think'?"

"Tsunade obviously didn't think so." Naruto sat down on one of the plush couches, making himself comfortable. " So why are you here Jiraiya?" he asked happily

The man, now known as Jiraiya, just gave the boy a look suggesting he was missing the obvious. He sat down behind the polished wood desk, and gazed at the boy from behind clasped hands. It took the blond a while, but he figured it out.

"Wait!….You're my new therapist?" he yelled out, jumping up from his seat.

"No shit." Jiraiya drawled before flapping his hands at the boy "Sit down and shut up" he ordered flippantly before leaning back in his chair.

Naruto did eventually sit down, although it was a might hesitantly.

"So tell me what you're in for." Jiraiya started.

"Didn't the old bat tell you herself…. Or Iruka?" Naruto questioned get petulantly.

"I want to hear it from the horse's mouth….so get going."

Naruto just shrugged. "I don't know what you want to hear?"

"How about how you are feeling at the moment?" Jiraiya offered.

As luck would have it Naruto blanched. This was a question he could not talk his way out of answering. One of the things Naruto avoided was lying, he had learnt his lesson about lying to people. Though he will admit that sometimes he didn't tell the whole truth; and that over time, and as a result of emotional distress he occasionally warped or perverted the truth as well.

He small boy bit his lip not wanting to admit something about himself, that he views as compromising. It wasn't just that he was embarrassed by his feelings, but also that he didn't want to worry his friends to much. Of course Jiraiya counted as a friend as well. He has known the man ever since Iruka had started working at the Institute.

"Well…"

/

Tables and chairs, tables and chairs…..Tables and fucking chairs. This as all Naruto could think about as he walked down the hallway towards the room holding group therapy. It was three days after his first therapy session with Jiraiya. Needless to say it had messed him up a little, he couldn't stand the thought of someone knowing exactly what he was thinking or feeling at the moment. Honestly though he was glad that it was Jiraiya who knew. If there was one thing that Naruto hated about therapists and psychologists, councillors and the like; it was that after hearing your story, or the way you feel, they always adopted either pitying looks. Either that or self-depreciating ones…If you hated your job so much that you felt sorry for yourself about hearing these sob stories, you should put yourself out of your misery and just…change your freaking occupation. Not that hard. Jiraiya was really easy to get along with though. He never gave you the wrong impression, and if he did it was because he was a notorious pervert, not hinting at what he felt in regards to his work.

Tables and chairs….again, there it was. Naruto was driving himself crazy. He had had those three words stuck in his head all morning. It wasn't as if it was his fault though. First thing he saw when he woke up that morning was a load of tables, and of course, chairs lining the hallway outside his room. He stared at them for a while before making his way to the bathroom. It got worse at that point. Not only were these items occupying his walking space outside. They were in the bathroom as well. At least they weren't in the showers or toilet cubicles though. They barely had enough room to wash themselves in the small units of containment as it was. The problem though was that the blond boy had shut the door behind him in the shower, and because he was so scatter brained he forgot to check and see if it was actually closed before he did it. Who could blame him though, Naruto was dopey in the morning.

It was only when Rock lee came in and started announcing how youthful the blonde was without clothes that Naruto finally noticed one of the tables had blocked the shower door from closing fully. This meant Lee was privy to the knowledge that Naruto was indeed a natural blonde. The only bright side was that it was not Genma or someone else who walked in on him.

In reality it was probably the next event that really disturbed the boy. He was in the middle of breakfast, happily munching away on his pancakes with lemon and honey, when he heard some of the handlers talking with each other. These two handlers happened to be Genma and a man named Raidou. Now Naruto had heard some pretty wild things from both Iruka and Kakashi at home about this duo. They had suggested that the two were boyfriends and were not afraid of demonstrating the act, in public.

"I swear I wiped it down properly…"

"You shouldn't have even made me do it in the first place."

He shuddered at the memory of what Genma said next. "Well that we have to move onto another room now anyway." he said.

"Why is that" Raidou asked.

"We've had sex on every surface in this room now."

Naruto immediately dropped the fork he had been about to take a bite of pancake off. His eyes widened and he looked around the room. He slapped a hand over his mouth and sprinted out of the room, knocking Kiba out of his way in his hurry to reach the bathroom.

When he finally returned to the canteen, his belly was empty again and he had a distinct pallor to his skin.

"Are you okay?" Raidou asked him kindly as he sat down gingerly. "Did you eat something bad?"

This was not the right question to ask Naruto as he slammed his head down on the table repeatedly. Raidou grabbed his shoulder then, making Naruto turn to look at the man. Raidou gave him a worrying look as he once again ran out of the room towards the toilets. If anyone asked him however he would swear that he saw something white in his handlers hair.

When he reached the group therapy room he was surprised to notice that he was the only one present, aside from Kurenai. He walked up to the chair that was positioned next to her in the circle. Making sure he checked said chair before sitting down of course.

"Is something wrong?" Kurenai asked him concerned, seeing the expression o his still pasty face.

"Why are there chairs and tables everywhere?" he asked quietly.

She glanced at him before answering. "we ordered some new ones for each classroom to replace the old wooden ones, but they gave us too many."

He nodded solemnly.

Observing this Kurenai attempted to cheer him up. "All of us staff members." she started. "Have a running bet that Tsunade was drunk when she ordered them and wrote the wrong number, down on the inventory form."

Naruto smiled wanly, trying not to worry the woman.

"I'm starting to show." she stated changing the subject.

The blonde turned and looked at her confused as to what she meant by this. Seeing his confusion Kurenai stood up and lifted her shirt up a little. He saw a small bulge in the shape of her stomach and stared at it in wonder. He had forgotten the woman was pregnant. He stretched out a hand to touch it but pulled back before he touched her abdomen.

"Does the baby kick yet?" he asked inquisitively.

"She's a little bit too small," the women chuckled. "Maybe in a few months."

"Will you let me feel when it does?" Naruto asked excitedly.

"If you want." she acquiesced.

"Promise?" Naruto requested intently.

She gave him a smile and a laugh. "I swear," she promised. "Did you want to shake on it or cross our pinkies or something?" she joked with good humour.

Naruto just pouted. "Aren't you supposed to be a therapist? Therapists aren't supposed to make fun of their patients are they?"

Before Kurenai had a chance to respond people started to wonder in. First there was Lee, who looked extremely disappointed that he was not the first to arrive and promptly starting doing push ups. Next was Kiba and Ino, followed shortly by Sakura. Something that surprised Naruto however was who chose to sit next to him. Everyday people who try and avoid having to sit next to the councillor. Purely because they did not want to be the first to talk when they went around the circle. Naruto had no idea why the order they went in mattered but apparently it did. Despite this though one of the people who was usually the one who wanted to talk the least came and sat next to him. Gaara Subaku.

Red hair, and green eyes, the boy was certainly something to look at. Despite his hair colour he had near perfect skin. The only blemish Naruto could see was a large tattoo on his forehead. Not that it was necessarily a blemish, it looked good…in its own special way.

Without realising it the blonde had been staring at the boy for a while now. He was brought out of his own thoughts when he heard the clearing of someone's throat.

A blush took over his face as he saw Gaara gazing back at him with an eyebrow raised.

"H- HI." Naruto stuttered out nervously. "You're Gaara aren't you?" he asked not giving the boy time to respond before moving on. "I'm Naruto. I'm sorry I haven't introduced myself but I didn't think you would want me to. A lot of the people here aren't really approachable." he paled a little realising that he had implied. "Not…not that you come across as unapproachable or something. I don't mean to infer anything. Its just that you are quiet and you look like the type of person who would enjoy their privacy."

Naruto chuckled nervously rubbing the back of his head out of habit.

"But….Hi." he reiterate.

The red headed boy kept his gaze steady. He stood up and raised his hand. Naruto ducked his head thinking that he was going to get hit because of what he had said, and frankly… what he had heard about the boy from Kiba. When he didn't feel anything though he peeked up through his bangs and just saw Gaara with his hand open in front of him.

"Hello." the boy said in a quiet voice,

Naruto supposed that the boy was waiting for him to shake his hand and so he grasped it hesitantly.

"Hi." he said again.

"Now that you've said hello to Gaara….three times. Do you think it would be okay if we started group now?" Kurenai asked from beside him.

Blushing twice as hard now Naruto shrunk back into his chair and apologised as his friends grinned at him. He didn't miss the soft smile Kurenai levelled at him though, or the little twitch at the side of Gaara's mouth.

/

"Dude, that's the first time I have seen Gaara be social, like ever." Kiba exclaimed as they walked out of the room. "What did you do to him? Was it drugs?"

Naruto rolled his eyes at the boy. "Of course not, if I had drugs do you think I would be waiting on someone I talked to for the first time only for today?"

Ino shoved closer to her blonde companion, swinging an arm about his neck. "You mean recreational drugs. Not the shit they shove down our throats here. Besides, you know if he had any of the good sort our good friend here would give them to me, wouldn't you buddy."

Sakura huffed from behind them. "That's really not funny." she said crossing her arms. "Oh No!" Ino's hands shot up to cover her mouth in a gasp. "You mean you are one of those 'Just Say No" followers?"

Slapping the blonde in the back of the head Sakura grunted. "At least I know I won't have brain damage when I'm older."

"a little bit late to be saying that." Kiba whispered to Naruto

"What was that?" Sakura shouted at him her hands clenching hard by her sides.

"You heard me women." Kiba said

They had stopped walking by that time and Naruto and Ino watched from the side lines as Sakura attempted to grab the boy who was running circles around her.

"Ha, you can't catch me that easily bitch." Kiba taunted her.

At that moment Naruto could totally picture the boy with a tail wagging excitedly behind him and a set of ears sitting perkily on his head. Sakura almost landed a punch, but before she could score the hit, Kiba barked at her and sprinted down the hallway towards the canteen.

Naruto was astonished when Sakura immediately settled down and walked forward with a measured pace.

"What was that about?" Naruto asked confused. "I though you were angry with him? Why aren't you chasing him?" he whipped his head either side of him in question

"One; I don't want to run. "Sakura started explaining. "And two; he's a dog, he likes to be entertained. I'm not above humouring him, he is crazy after all, I can indulge him every so often."

The blonde boy blinked. "So you aren't against drugs?" he asked still a bit lost.

"Of course I am." Sakura growled at him. "I hate that they think they can cure my 'problems' by claiming it's a chemical imbalance of the brain."

With that the pink haired girl stormed off around the corner and through the entrance to the canteen. Naruto's head dropped.

"I just don't understand girls." he lamented

Ino giggled and patted him on the head. "Of course you don't. You're a boy." she still had one of her arms around his shoulders and steered him forwards. "You don't have to anyway," she commented seemingly offhandedly. "that's the upside of being gay."

Naruto nodded dejectedly before jerking his head up in shock.

"Wait, I never said I was gay." he squeaked at her.

"Oh, sweetie….you didn't have to. Its kind of obvious." and with that said she swaggered off only turning back to give him a secretive wink with her tongue poking through her lips.

Naruto stared on shocked before stalking forward his masculine pride in shreds. "Stupid girls." he grumbled irritably under his breath.

/

"So what is your prognosis?"

"It is not as simple as all that. There is no way that I can provide a reasonable diagnosis without having the 'full' story. You know that Naruto never openes up enough to give all the details. There still so much that we do not know."

Tsunade, and Jiraiya, the incontrovertible leaders in their field of psychology were at a loss. The pair of them both had perhaps become too attached to their patient and as a result their critical thinking was compromised by their emotions pertaining to this certain boy.

"About the only certain thing I can tell from what he revealed to me so far, is that it is much worse then we feared. He did not tell me of any particular events per say…but you know that he is loath to lie in the best circumstances, and I asked him about what he had been feeling lately. Needless to say that the results had not been good." Jiraiya hung his head prompting Tsunade to ask:

"What exactly did he say he was feeling? She asked.

"Oh not this bullshit! You're starting to sound like all the other therapists out there you old hag."

What do you mean by that?" she asked furiously.

"You basically asked. '…and how do you feel about that?' That's just too Cliché!"

Tsunade just rolled her eyes. Trust Jiraiya to dramatise even the most serious of discussions. If only she had never allowed the man to take up writing porn as a hobby, or writing full stop. There quite enough nut jobs in here. As luck mat have it, a lot of them were writers too. Writers always wanted to live out the acts they portray in their novels. Pre-emptively she hit him in the head. That would be for whenever he decides he wants to act out a scene from his cook and attempt to molest her.

"What was that for?" the old man exclaimed clutching the back of his head.

"Doesn't matter, just tell me what the brat said." she demanded

Jiraiya hung his head once again. His sombre attitude fully reinstated from the reminder of their previous subject.

"Basically there is one word that sums it up…."

"What word?" Tsunade prompted when she saw her friend pause.

"….."

/

**Rei; "Short chapter, I know. That's your problem though."**

**Naruto; "…."**

**Sasuke; "…"**

**Naruto; "…"**

**Sasuke; "…..We don't **_**care**_**…"**

**Naruto; "…Who **_**are**_** you?"**


	5. Chapter 5

**NO OWNY…..Enough said.**

"_You basically asked. '…and how do you feel about that?' That's just too Cliché!" _

_Tsunade just rolled her eyes. Trust Jiraiya to dramatise even the most serious of discussions. If only she had never allowed the man to take up writing porn as a hobby, or writing full stop. There quite enough nut jobs in here. As luck mat have it, a lot of them were writers too. Writers always wanted to live out the acts they portray in their novels. Pre-emptively she hit him in the head. That would be for whenever he decides he wants to act out a scene from his book and attempt to molest her._

"_What was that for?" the old man exclaimed clutching the back of his head._

"_Doesn't't matter, just tell me what the brat said." she demanded_

_Jiraiya hung his head once again. His sombre attitude fully reinstated from the reminder of their previous subject._

"_Basically there is one word that sums it up…."_

"_What word?" Tsunade prompted when she saw her friend pause._

"…_.."_

/

"You're a little late you know."

"Well it's not my fault they have been chasing me every which way for about three months. There was nothing I could do about it."

"That's no excuse!"

"I'm Sorry."

"We have to get rid of him. He could ruin everything for us; him and that little red demon."

"Yes sir."

"I need you to get in contact with that worker from the medical exams; she should be able to get a handle on the situation."

"…but don't they know she is connected?"

"…not anyone that matters. Besides he was just a boy when he met her how could he remember a thing… especially after what he went though."

/

**Chapter Five**

"Naru, you need to get out of bed now!"

"I don't want to."

The little blonde haired boy clung to his bed sheets as hard as he was able.

"But I don't want to….its too early, and too cold."

"Too bad you have to, its Ino's birthday today and we have to be there." the girl pulling on his foot informed him.

"Yes I know that," he complained. "But why do we have to be there at five in the morning? We aren't even supposed to be up yet, we'll get in trouble with the handlers. I bet you even Ino isn't awake yet."

Sakura stopped pulling on his foot to wipe away the hair in her eyes. She turned to look at the doorway irritated. "Kiba, come and help me get him up."

"Why? It's funny….and don't forget I'm still angry at you for getting me up early as well." The brunette bounced up and down on the spot, excited to see Naruto giving the girl so much trouble. In his mind his tail was wagging, and though was tempted to turn around and see if it was he wouldn't let himself be pulled into that trick again. People always laughed at him when he tried to see his tail. It wasn't his fault if his tail had a mind of his own and kept hiding from him every time it turned around. Unbeknownst to Kiba he had started growling and grumbling softly under his breath. This had made both Sakura and Naruto stop their arguing and give him speculative looks.

"Are you angry at your tail again?" Naruto asked.

"What?" Kiba asked his face becoming immediately confused. "How can you tell that's what I was thinking?"

Sakura giggled and Naruto grinned, "You just had that look on your face." he laughed knowingly.

In the first couple of week that Naruto had been here Tsunade had told him that he wasn't supposed to reinforce anybody's 'delusions' including Kiba's. This meant that he was actually supposed to be informing Kiba that he had no tail. Though Naruto couldn't do that to his friend. It wasn't like the dog loving boy would believe him anyway; the boy was here for a reason after all. If the psychologists couldn't convince him that he wasn't a canine, what made them think Naruto could?

"Just come on Naruto, you're already awake anyway." Sakura growled and with one strong yank sent Naruto sliding off the bed and onto the floor.

"I really dislike you sometimes you know that right?" Naruto glared at her.

"…and I hate you all the time. Now get the fuck out of my room you assholes." A growl from the other bed occupying the room echoed through the air.

All three of the teens turned to the person who spoke, attempting to ignore the evil vibes radiating off the second bed.

"Sorry Sasuke." Sakura simpered immediately. "I forgot that you were here as well."

The three boys all rolled their eyes at her behaviour. Really you would think that she would act the same around all the boys, especially seeing as Sasuke didn't even show any interest in her. She persisted though. Naruto frowned even though he was complaining about having to get up so early, it was still more enjoyable then having Sasuke telling him off. It wasn't even like it was his fault in the first place, Sakura had come barging in here of her own will and he had nothing to do with it.

"Teme" he grunted before standing up.

"Wait outside; I just have to get changed. It's too cold to be walking around here in just my pyjamas" he instructed his friends.

Once the door was closed and it was quiet again Naruto turned to look at his roommate. He frowned even more when he saw the dark, angry eyes staring back at him.

"I'm sorry about them." he apologised rubbing the back of his head nervously.

Sasuke grunted and rolled over on his other side, facing away from the blonde. "Don't worry about it." he lifted one arm lazily as if waving the subject away. "Just tell them not to do it again."

This made Naruto smile slightly again, over the last three months Sasuke had become more and more civil towards him, although sometimes he could still be a bitch.

/

As soon as Naruto left the room Sasuke turned back around to face the centre of their room. He sighed a little before closing his eyes once again. After a moment he lifted himself on his elbows, and opened his eyes. He punched his pillows a few times harshly before relaxing back onto the bed. It was exhausting for him to be around the blonde he had noticed. He would not be able to get back to sleep now though and he knew it. For some reason unknown to him his interest was sparked. Whatever the blonde boy was participating in he had the urge to know about it. It was strange, and not just because he disliked the boy, it was because he really did not even care. It was a simple compulsion and nothing more.

Soon enough he heard footsteps walking down the corridor, and the opening and closing of doors. He waited until his own door was opened to look up. In his doorway he saw Asuma, his handler on Monday mornings.

"Its time to get up Sasuke. It's already eight. Usually you are up by now, is there something wrong?"

Sasuke almost started, he did not expect it to be that late, and it seemed like almost a moment in his eyes. However he stopped himself from showing his surprise, as Asuma was watching him suspiciously.

"Hn." he just said. This seemed to satisfy the handler, and he was soon left alone.

Not for long though apparently.

"Sasuke!" he heard him coming before the door even opened. "How are you this morning?" His friend asked.

Now Sasuke uses the term friend loosely every time, he does use it. When he says friend he means that he is able to tolerate for sometimes extended periods of time. One would not think so but Sasuke was kind enough to actually admit that he didn't hate everyone. Whether other people knew this or not was another matter. After all he had a reputation to uphold.

"Hn." he grunted at the other boy.

"I take that to mean that you are happy and well." the boy smiled happily.

"Where have you been?" Sasuke asked quietly.

This made the other ecstatic. "Did you worry about me Sasuke-kun?" he cooed.

"Haku…." Sasuke growled in warning. Just because he considered the brunette tolerable did not mean that he was going to take his bullshit.

"Fine." the boy said pouting. "I was out with Zabuza."

"You went out with Zabuza for Two and a half months?" Sasuke asked sceptically.

"Well…" Haku started. "When I say 'out', I kind of mean I was kind of going for some special treatment in China."

Sasuke smirked. "Does that mean that you are more unstable then you were before?" That was generally the only reason someone was sent away to a specialist. If they got any worse, or so that the open-unit could no longer support them.

Pouting once more Haku looked away. "No, I think they just wanted to give Zabuza a holiday, and you know him…he couldn't leave me behind."

Sasuke remembered that Zabuza was Haku's handler, and personal psychologist. He had been ever since Haku had come two years ago; he was paid for by the state, as Haku's parents had been very important ambassadors at one point in time.

Sasuke let the subject drop after a quick nod. Once Haku started talking about Zabuza in depth you couldn't get him to stop, he had a very extreme case of hero worship towards the man.

"Its Ino's birthday today you know." Sasuke quickly changed the subject seeing Haku's mouth about to open again. As the possibly of him talking about his handler again was high, Sasuke preferred to stop him before hand.

"Really?" he asked excitedly

Ino had not been at the institute for her to have a birthday here yet. She and Sakura had only come in about nine months ago. They had come in a few weeks apart from each other at the time. That was what Sasuke though made them such good friends now, they had both been feeling lonely and it is admittedly hard for people to connect at first in a mental health institution.

"Do you know how old she is?" he asked interrupting Sasuke train of thought.

Sasuke just gave him a look asking 'does it look like I know?' Before standing up and stretching his arms out and back. He winced when he heard a few sharp pops from his joints.

"Doesn't that hurt?" he was asked.

Shaking his head, Sasuke headed for the cupboards and pulled out some clothes for the day.

"You'll get arthritis when you're older you know." Haku chided him on his behaviour.

Sasuke just smirked a little. "At least I won't be stiff and uncomfortable now though."

Haku ignored the comment and walked up to him. Holding the clothes Sasuke had grabbed up against him, the long haired, brunette grimaced.

"How do you always manage to do that?"

"Do what?"

"Everyday you just pull out the first thing that you see in your cabinet and it always turned out to be the perfect outfit for the day. It takes me hours to pick out what I wear each morning. It's not fair!"

Sasuke simply smirked. "I am just that awesome." he stated before snatching up his clothes and heading to the bathrooms.

He made sure to lock the door behind him this time. He had been caught more than one person trying to sneak a peek at him in the shower, and not all of them were girls.

/

"Come on Ino. Rise and shine!"

"Why do you do this to me?"

Naruto laughed at the screaming pair. Even being the best of friends they were always arguing. Though at the moment Naruto knew exactly what the other blonde was feeling.

"I should be able to sleep in it's my birthday!"

Sakura just gave her protesting friend an evil smirk and said; "Well too bad it's already nine, and we all went to the trouble of getting everyone else up early to prepare something special for you."

"You mean _you _went to the trouble of waking up everyone else to do something special for her," Kiba felt the need to add in his two cents.

"I think…." Ino began. "…that everyone should just go back to bed and sleep until the handlers come and wake us up themselves."

Everyone in the room nodded their head in unison, except of course for Sakura. Annoyed that nobody was following her orders, she immediately flung the quilt off of Ino and onto the floor. Seeing Ino curl up on the bed from the cold she grabbed one of her feet and yanked her out onto the floor without any mercy at all. Naruto laughed at how similar it had been to his own awakening.

"But it's my birthday!" Ino whined from her place on the floor.

Not ten minutes later all the patients from their ward were sitting in the canteen area having breakfast and talking up a storm. They were also enjoying the food. It had turned out that Sakura had organised Chouji's father to come in and actually make them a proper meal.

"Nobody deserves to have that hospital slop on their birthday" Sakura explained.

Chouji was one of the other kids on their ward; he was best friends with Shikamaru and very good friends with Ino as well. Though his being friends with Ino was quite ironic as their reasons for being in the institution were in a sense opposite. Ino was diagnosed as an exercise bulimic as well as anorexia nervosa, while Chouji was diagnosed with a nervous personality disorder, as well as a small amount of autism. As a result of these problems, Ino would not eat enough, and Chouji ate almost too much. They were the extremes at either end of the spectrum. Despite how these problems had affected them negatively in the outside world, they seemed to both be doing rather well under the care of the therapists and handlers at the institution.

Naruto was currently sitting next to Sakura and Chouji and was directly across from the birthday girl herself.

"So how old are you turning today?" Naruto asked Ino once he had finished consuming the massive amounts of pancakes and English muffins stacked onto his plate.

"I'm sixteen today." She grinned, picking up a piece of rockmelon from her fruit salad. She had obviously decided she could splurge on eating today seeing as it was her birthday, and had asked for a fruit salad, as well as an apple juice and a piece of toasted bread, with egg on top. Not that she had eaten it all, but she was working her way slowly through it.

"How old are you?" she asked in return once she had finished thoroughly chewing her food.

"I'm not quite sure." Naruto said before turning his face down, attempting to hide the shadows that marked his face at the question. "Iruka and I have decided that I am around fifteen though." he added looking up again and smiling brightly. It seemed to fool Ino though she looked shocked.

Deciding that it was best to drop the subject Ino slid a smirk onto her face. "Soooo…. Did you get me something as a present?" she asked Naruto slyly.

In reality she really wouldn't care if she got something or not. She could acknowledge how hard it would be in a place like this and she didn't want to put anybody out of their way.

Naruto reddened, and soon his face became ashamed.

"I'm so sorry!" he said. "I helped Sakura this morning but I really didn't think about anything else."

Ino just shook her head smiling fondly at the boy. "I don't mind really, its okay." she said, concerned about making him feel guilty.

Another smile took over her face as she thought of something. "I know something that would not cost a lot of money, and that you would not have to go out of your way to get me." she said happily.

Naruto immediately brightened. "What?" he asked excited to be able to give the birthday girl something.

"Well…"Ino started. "You just have to lean forward a bit and close your eyes…."

As she looked around as he did this noting that there were a number of other people starting to watch what was happening. She just winked at them as a signal to keep quiet.

"Make sure you keep your eyes close" she instructed in an almost whisper.

"Okay…" Naruto consented a bit dubiously. Trusting the girl and dutifully following her instructions to the letter.

Seeing as she had kept everyone waiting in suspense Ino decided to take her gift now. Hoping that Naruto would not take it the wrong way, she just meant it as a friendly gesture she leaned forward as well. Pursing her lips slowly she pressed them slightly onto Naruto's a light kiss.

Immediately Naruto went stiff as a board, his eyes shooting open and he flung himself back and off of his chair.

Everyone looked at him in shock, standing, or sitting and just watching. Ino looked at him in confusion. "What's wrong?" she asked slowly.

Naruto started to shake and shiver eyes glazed and distant.

"Naruto!" Ino stood up slowly. Now worried she looked around for a handler or any adult to help.

At that moment Sakura ran forward to the blonde and knelt in front of him. Naruto seemed not to see her and she reached a hand forward. Hesitantly, and almost as if she was scared of touching him when he looked so scared, she extended her hand slowly. Then as it got close she shot it out as if to get the deed done. For a second there was silence and then Naruto's eyes widened. In an instant he was starting back from her and he started whining.

"Naruto." Ino came around the table and leaned down to the boy who was on the floor now his hands thrown out protectively in front of him.

Sakura shuffled forward a little and reached out for him again. This time as she came within touching distance of him he shot forward and bit her hand. His teeth bit hard into the flesh and refused to let go.

Seeing this, some of the boys watching, shot forward to help. Kiba tried to pry Naruto's clamped teeth off Sakura's hand, and Chouji tried to wrestle him back.

Lee had run off looking for a handler, and the rest watched on. Gaara was being held back by Neji as he seemed to possess a crazed look in his eyes.

"Let me go!" he screamed, trying to reach Naruto. "I can help" he shouted.

Neji was not sure if this was a ploy to get out of his arms or if he genuinely wanted to assist.

As soon as Naruto had been grabbed he started flailing and crying out in panic.

"Let go! Let Go!" he screamed desperately.

Naruto shuddered as another hand grabbed him, he was pale as a sheet now and despite the adrenalin in his system, he was becoming tired. Chouji was after all significantly more sized then he was himself.

"Let go of him." A voice said hurriedly. Naruto could sense no recognition towards the voice however in his panicked state he could not be trusted to know who was friend and who was foe.

"I said…let go!"

The voice said urgently as he fought all the more hard.

The weight lifted off his body for a moment and was replaced by a warmer embrace and a soft whispering in his ear.

The rest of the children remained as onlookers watching the strange events in fascination and a scared awe. The frenetic energy had been slowly drained from the room and Naruto settled down.

At the first whisper from his new captor Naruto has released Sakura's hand from his mouth and she was cradling it now to her bosom tears running down her face. Ino and Kiba dragged her back a little so that she wasn't in the danger zone.

As the amount of fear lessoned, the tension Naruto had been holding was slowly released. He recognised the voice now, as soon as it had whispered in his ear he did.

"Calm down Kyuubi." was what he had heard, and it was wringing in his mind even know. The voice made his eyes widen more if that was possible. Tears were running freely from his eyes now and he turned to clasp the red-haired boy in his arms. Gaara had been successful in his escape from the Hyuuga, once he had convinced Neji that he could help he immediately ran to the other boy's side. He collapsed onto his knees and buried his head into the nape of the blonde's neck, nuzzling into his hair.

"Shhhh." he hummed out into his ear.

"I'm here now. You remember me don't you? Everything's alright, he can't hurt you here."

Naruto sook still and stuttered out a word only the other boy in his arms could hear.

"Sh-Shukaku."

/

Sasuke watched the events happening at the time they occurred. At first he had not been interested; but once he saw everyone staring at Ino, and understanding what she was about to do, he could not help but to watch as she leant forward towards his roommate.

The outburst although startling, and definitely not what he was expecting, was interesting.

Being the attentive observer that he was, Sasuke saw that this behaviour was deeply ingrained within the boy. He sighed; things would only get harder for him now with the boy as his roommate. He realised that Iruka had been right when he had talked to him in therapy the other day. After a particularly harsh criticism of his roommate Iruka had responded;

"Sasuke, you need to watch over Naruto." Iruka had said. "He is not as normal as you seem to think he is. He's not innocent, or naïve, or anything else you just described him as being. He just wishes he was like that."

Sasuke sighed again, he was tempted to say all this was troublesome, and he would if it would not make him sound too much like Shikamaru.

Even he jumped though, as he was pulled from his thoughts by Sakura's yell. He stared on shocked at her hand in the boy's mouth.

Despite his emotionless façade, he felt the twinges in his stomach and chest, which he recognised faintly as pity. Though there was something else there that he did not recognise for a moment before it too disappeared. He watched as the usually stoic Gaara took Chouji's place holding back the blonde. Although Gaara seemed able to calm Naruto down more effectively as he whispered in Naruto's ear. The sight of this made another unknown feeling well up within Sasuke and he desperately tore it down. He had had enough and walked out of the room. Although he seemed to become more and more depressed as he walked away from the scene. He watched as Asuma, Lee and Iruka came running down the hallway towards the Canteen and walked away at a slower pace. He looked back towards the room and it felt as if he was making a big mistake by walking away. He rubbed at his eyes tiredly and sighed once more. Without noticing he had stopped walking. He now stood in the hallway that separated the cafeteria and the room Naruto and he shared. He was still glancing back down the hall towards where he had come from and he was swaying on the spot. He rubbing his eyes gain he noticed how tired he was and the feeling he had before seemed to arise again slowly. He grabbed at his head with one and at his chest with the other before he swayed more drastically to the left and collapsed onto the floor.

Haku's voice calling his name being the last coherent thing he heard.

"_Sasuke!"_

/

**Rei; "So tired…."**

**Sasuke; "Shut your trap and stop complaining."**

**Rei; "But its soooo much effort."**

**Sasuke; "No, you're just lazy."**

**Naruto; "He's right you know. You're probably worse then Shikamaru."**

**Rei; "I'm not lazy it just takes a lot of time and effort to think of anything to write."**

**Sasuke; "Right….that and you have brain issues."**

**Rei; "Well that too."**


	6. Chapter 6

**I own Naruto: All its characters and affiliated products and merchandise…..in my messed up dreams.**

_Rubbing his eyes again he noticed how tired he was and the feeling he had before seemed to arise again slowly. He grabbed at his head with one hand and at his chest with the other before he swayed more drastically to the left and collapsed onto the floor._

_Haku's voice calling his name being the last coherent thing he heard._

"_Sasuke"_

_/_

_**6**_

Sasuke was being particularly slow this morning. He had woken up, his eye lids seeming to stick together and weigh down on his eyes. Tiredly, he opened them, and breathed in and out calmly. Almost immediately his eyes started to close again of their own accord. This annoyed the dark-haired boy to no end, usually when he awoke he was alert immediately and it was often difficult for him to even comprehend falling back to sleep. There also seemed to be a peculiar buzzing coming from all around him.

"Shut up Naruto" he murmured drowsily not bothering to open his eyes, content for the moment just to lie in relative silence.

However that irritating sound soon got the better of his patience and he once again stirred. Opening his eyes once more he swung his feet around in an attempt to remove himself from bed.

"Sasuke!" he heard shouted before he felt hands pushing him back to sit on the comforter. Which he soon realised was much too high to be his own. His feet were barely able to touch the floor from the height he was sitting and he was sure he had not shrunk. It was then he noticed the person pushing him back was familiar, and not in a good way.

"This isn't my room, and you are not Naruto." he stated casually while taking his time to observe his surroundings now his mind was starting to wake up more.

"No." the woman answered him. "Do you know where we are?" she asked slowly watching for his reaction.

Sasuke chose not to deign this question with a response, he just looked at the woman like she was an idiot. His elder however, took his silence to mean that he was not aware of his location and promptly asked another question.

"Do you know who I am?"

Sasuke rolled his eyes and decided just to answer here stupid question even though he still felt really lethargic and was honestly not interested in what this old bat had to do with his current situation.

"Yes Lady Chiyo I know who you are." he replied in his most condescending tone.

Ignoring what the old woman knew was a clear insult, she advised him to lay back down and not to move until she came back.

After disappearing to God knows where Sasuke was left alone. Or so he thought, until he took a closer look at the room he identified as the clinic. Lying on a bed a few paces away from him was a small body with a shock of blonde hair. Even as addled as his brain was at the moment he identified this person as being his own roommate.

"Oi….dobe." he called out softly. The figure in question remained unmoved and Sasuke huffed dispassionately.

Thinking back it figured that the boy would wind up here anyway. He just did not think that he would be in a similar situation. Not that he could recall how he eventuated here.

He flopped back to recline on the bed his legs dangly off the edge, disregarding the slight dizziness he felt as a result of the action.

There was one thing that Sasuke was glad for at this moment, well two; one, that none of the other patients could come into the clinic without a handlers approval and escort; and two, that Naruto was still asleep, preserving the silence for his emerging headache. He was aware that this seemingly tranquil atmosphere would probably not last that long though. It never did.

/

"Sasuke, Sasuke…. Wake up."

The words sounded like they were coming through a thin layer of cotton wool. Distorted and bleeding together Sasuke struggled to comprehend what was happening.

"Come on open your eyes now." the voice reiterated.

He groaned, his body felt like lead and he was so tired. Why couldn't the voice just leave him alone so he could fall back to sleep in silence. Slowly he wrenched his eyes open, he cringed at the sleep residue around the corners of his eyes attempting to glue his eye lids together.

"_There's_ a boy." the voice said supportively.

He turned his head to the side slowly and frowned when he found that it was the annoying nurse standing next to him. He felt a touch on his arm and glared at the offending hand attached to him. The impertinence of this women, daring to touch him yet again after addressing him as if he were a dog no less. Growling he sat up stiffly, still in the process of waking up, and glanced around. He was still in the infirmary. He did remember waking up the last time, although he did not recall having fallen asleep. Even if he did he thought that he would be waking up feeling better then he had before he had arrived. If anything he felt worse; his eyes and neck were aching, he had a headache, and the rest of his body felt like it was being weighed down by lead. Especially his stomach which was tossing and turning in every which way and direction. He's lucky he doesn't have a weak stomach or he feared that he would have already have thrown up; and he couldn't possibly do that, it wasn't the Uchiha way.

Seeing the confusion and frustration that was being almost perfectly concealed on the teenagers face the nurse adopted a serious expression.

"How are you feeling?" she asked reaching out to the trolley that was beside his bed and grabbing a strange looking stick.

Explaining to him what she was doing as she went along (even though he could have guessed most of it; being in a medical institute he was used to such things) she took his temperature, blood pressure, responses to light and touch. She also informed him that she had taken some blood samples from him while he was asleep.

While Sasuke was glad for this he did not feel the need to commend her for her forethought. She had obviously learnt from experience, the last time she had tried to get blood from him she had ended up with a large bite mark on her arm for weeks.

"You didn't answer my question before." she tutted "…how are you doing?"

"I feel like crap." Sasuke stated before turning over to face away from her.

Even though he couldn't see it he knew that she was dying to interrogate him some more. The tension in his shoulders relaxed upon hearing her move away from him.

Observing her as she walked past he saw her heading over towards another bed.

"Oh, you're awake." he heard

His eye widened and his stomach knotted when the woman said this. He wasn't quite sure about why he was reacting this way, he was almost nervous. Maybe it was because he didn't want to be seen as weak by his roommate. Being seen as weak was just asking for trouble. This was speaking straight from experience. He closed his eyes, great… his headache was coming back again.

/

"Oh, you're awake."

Naruto closed his eyes hoping that the woman would just leave. Nobody should be allowed near him, he was a monster. Always hurting his friends and family. It was no wonder he never had friends more than a few months. They were disgusted by him and had every right to hate him.

"Come on Naruto. Do you want something to eat, or drink?"

Naruto resolutely refused to talk. He would only say something stupid anyway. Pulling the covers up over his head his lip quivered. No, he wouldn't cry. Not now.

"Do you want me to get Iruka for you Sweetie?"

That made Naruto flinch. Iruka always had to clean up his messes after him. He loved his father and the man deserved better then to have to deal with someone like him.

"I'll just go get him for you." Chiyo said and left which made Naruto wish he had said something to her.

He lay in silence or a while, not really thinking bout anything in particular. He felt the eyes glancing at him every so often from across the room. Sasuke, he had heard the nurse talking to him. Why the other boy was in the infirmary as well, he didn't know. The Uchiha had looked fine last time they had met. If he was being his normal cheery self he might have been concerned but at the moment he couldn't bring himself to care. It had only been fifteen minutes or so since the nurse had left to get Iruka that Naruto got bored. Even depressed he was too energetic to lay down for long, when he wasn't asleep. Sitting up he looked around the room. He hadn't been in this room before. He hadn't had any reason to he supposed.

Blue eyes landed on the prone figure a few beds away from his own. Dark, spiky hair denoted the identity of the person. He got up and walked over towards the bed. Upon closer inspection he found that his roommate appeared to be sleeping. Moving across the opposite side of the bed so he could see his face, Naruto was alarmed to find that the other teen was sweating profusely and was also shivering a little.

"Sasuke." he called nudging the other boy.

The eye lids opened to a slit, revealing only a portion of the dark eyes they hid.

"Are you okay?" Naruto asked.

Sasuke was, apparently, not okay as in the next minute his eyes widened and he turned himself over; almost falling off the bed, before promptly throwing his stomach contents up on the floor.

Naruto moved backwards hastily to avoid any of it getting on his feet. He was only wearing a hospital gown, he didn't want vomit touching his exposed feet or shins. That's just gross. Noticing the boy getting out of his bed to stand unsteadily he held his hands out towards him worriedly.

"Sasuke….?"

The dark-haired boy wavered once more on his feet. Naruto wasn't quiet sure whether this was because he was going to spew again or faint. Either way he decided it would be prudent to wrap his arm around the other and attempt to keep him upright. This was decidedly hard seeing as he was now a dead weight in his arms.

His head darted from side to side attempting to find a way out of this situation. If only the nurse would come back it wouldn't be a problem. He couldn't hear anyone coming towards them though so that wasn't his best course of action.

Looking down towards his roommate he saw that his eyes were now closed, he was apparently unconscious, and his breathing was more faint.

Biting his lip, he made a decision. There was no way that he could leave the comatose boy here by himself. What if he got worse? What if he was dying? There would be no-one there to aid him, not that Naruto could if he wanted to. With the decision made he shifted his arms around the boy so they were under his waist and one of them was between his legs. Grunting with the effort he lifted Sasuke up in a fireman's hold.

"Hold on a sec." he grumbled to both himself and Sasuke shifting him a little. "Come on, let's go find the nurse."

Running as fast as he could, he made his way along to Iruka's office. The nurse had mentioned that she was going to get Iruka, and although this was daunting news at the time of the announcement, it was now nothing more then a bothersome fact.

/

As they ran along the corridors Naruto became increasingly worried about the imminent threat of the boy vomiting again. Pressing on a sick boys stomach was never a good idea, and here Sasuke was bouncing up and down on Naruto's shoulder as they ran for help. The blonde couldn't help but wonder if it was possible to vomit while you were unconscious, although he would prefer not to discover the answer at this exact moment.

After running for about five minutes Naruto was quick to reconsider his plan of action. He paused to catch his breath and in doing so looked around only to discover that he was totally lost. He probably should have taken into consideration the fact that he had never visited the infirmary before and therefore had no idea where he was in relation to Iruka's office.

After realising this the boy did the only thing he could think to do in this situation.

"HELP!"

He never admitted to thinking it was a brilliant plan.

"PLEASE, IS ANY BODY THERE? HELP!"

Readjusting his hold on the other he once again started running , still yelling, and hoping that he would find someone to come to their rescue.

After what seemed and eternity of these actions and having no response he finally spotted an emergency phone against one of the white walls. He almost sobbed the stark red colour signalling him towards it as he ran. Finally standing before it he carefully place the dark-haired boy on the ground. Thankfully vomit free and still breathing. Although he looked even more wan then before. Pulling the handset of the wall he dialled in his father's mobile phone number and crossed his fingers. After only two rings his prayers were answered. Unfortunately not by who he was expecting to pick up.

"Hello who is it?" Came the voice of his other father through the line.

"DAD!" Naruto exclaimed in both surprise and dread. "Why do you have Iruka's phone? Where is he? I need to talk to him now!"

"Calm down Sunshine. Iruka just left his phone at home today. What is so urgent? Surely you could have just to his office to speak to him.

As calmly as he could Naruto explained the situation to his adopted father. He could almost see his brows furrowing as he understood the serious nature of his son's dilemma.

"Okay first things first. How is your friend?" Kakashi inquired in his policeman's tone.

Naruto almost corrected him out of habit but pushed it to the side.

"I don't know…he's pale."

"Anything else."

"I don't know." Naruto replied sounding more distressed. How was he supposed to know he had never done first aid training like Kakashi or been around sick people like Iruka.

"How's his breathing?" he was prompted.

Naruto leant down the phone clasped in one hand and the other placed gently on Sasuke's neck. He moved as close as he could to the other as he could without touching him and listened and felt attentively.

"Its really soft and it isn't coming out as fast as it was before."

"….and can you feel his pulse for me."

The blonde nodded his assent forgetting that his father couldn't see him and felt with the hand that was already on his neck for a beat. Thinking fast he compared it to his own.

"His is faster then mine." he answered quickly sounding worried.

"Okay, that means that his heart is trying to make up for the oxygen he's losing in his breathing by trying to push more blood through his body."

"Ok." Naruto calmed down a little understanding the situation a bit better.

He waited with baited breath for Kakashi's next instruction.

"Ok what I want you to do now Naruto is look around and see if there are any numbers on the wall or on any doors where you are. Or even if you remember passing any."

Looking around carefully Naruto scanned his surroundings intently but failed to notice any signs on the walls, and there were no doors that he could see at the moment.

"I couldn't see any." he said standing back up from where he had been crouched in front of Sasuke. He slammed his hand on the telephone box that was mounted to the wall in frustration. "I can't see any-…."

"Naruto?"

"…I found something." he announced sounding excited "There's a number on the telephone. Like a source number or something, like the internal land-line you have at the station."

"What is it? I'll write it down." Kakashi asked hurriedly.

Relaying the number Naruto breathed a sigh of relief hopefully the institution kept a track of their phones.

"Naruto this is going to be the hard part okay. I'm going to have to hang up so that I can contact someone at the institutions main office and find out where the phone is. Do you think you can stay put until someone comes and finds you?"

"But what if the don't?" Naruto frowned at his shoes.

"They will." Kakashi comforted him confidently. "Can you look after Sasuke until they get there?"

"Yes." Naruto answered softly.

"I didn't hear you soldier." Kakashi's voice rang out over the phone.

"Sir, yes, sir!" Naruto replied loudly in continuation of their personal joke. Cracking a slight smile.

"I'll see you soon Son." Kakashi said before the dial tone was heard.

Naruto put the phone back on the receiver and turned to slowly slide down the wall to sit next to his roommate.

Looking at the boy contemplatively Naruto shifted closer and raised an arm to place around his shoulder. The unconscious boy's head fell to rest on his shoulder and he placed his own on top of that.

"I wonder why we aren't friends?" he asked aloud although quietly. "When you get better I promise that I'll make more of an effort to be nice….and don't forget, I never back out of a promise"

/

They were eventually found although it was about three quarters of an hour late. Kurenai was the one who found them in the end. She immediately grabbed her pager and sent a message to the others and then checked on the patients.

"Are you alright?" She asked Naruto watching out for any signs of danger. He had after all just had a major breakdown only hours before.

Naruto nodded.

"What about Sasuke?" she turned her attention to the other boy noting how pale he looked.

"I-I don't know." Naruto sobbed.

"Will you let me take a look at him please, and then we can go back to the infirmary to make sure he gets looked after."

Naruto nodded, but did not move from his protective position cradling the other.

"That means that you'll have to move your arm a little bit." Naruto growled as Kurenai said this. To placate him she continued; "You can still stay near him and hold his hand if you want."

Observing the women suspiciously he reluctantly gave his consent and loosened his grip on Sasuke. If he had not known Kurenai for as long as he had (which was almost as long as Iruka had been working there), then he would not be giving an inch.

After a cursory examination Kurenai nodded and stood up.

"Did you want to carry him back?" She asked Naruto

Naruto nodded mutely before once again picking up the sick boy, this time bridal style so that he could keep a better eye on his condition. Also because he was more worried about him now that he had been unconscious for such a great length of time; then he was about being spewed on or looking stupid.

Kurenai marched them back in the direction they had come from, and following her confidant lead they made it back to the sick bay in fifteen minutes. Naruto had had no idea how big this facility was until he had got himself lost in it.

"Naruto!" his name as called as soon as they entered the room.

"Iruka." Naruto almost sobbed in relief. That was before gruff hands came and tried to relieve him of his burden. He hissed at them attempting to shuffle back through the door.

"Naruto its okay." Iruka assured him in a calm voice. "You have to let the doctors take care of Sasuke so he can get better okay?"

With an increasing amount of trepidation Naruto handed the dark-haired boy over to the burly handler who laid him on a bed for the doctors to examine. While Kurenai was rattling off a quick series of stats about his condition to them Iruka came and took Naruto around his shoulders.

"Let's give them some room." he said before leading the two of them out into the hallway.

"But….Sasuke." Naruto attempted to turn his head back around only catching glances of his soon-to-be friend.

"We'll be right next door" Iruka informed him. "Sasuke is my patient too so I'd like to keep an eye on him."

/

"I heard about what happened this morning." Iruka started as they sat down in the comfy chairs present in the otherwise empty room.

"I'm sorry." Naruto hung his head picking at a thread sticking out from the fibres of his own chair.

"What is there to be sorry for?"

"I hurt Sakura…' he hesitate before shutting his mouth.

"I'm sure she'll forgive you. But were you going to say something else?"

"and….I embarrassed you."

"I forgive you Naruto, and you didn't embarrass me."

"Yeah but I lied to you too."

"What did you lie about?"

"I didn't tell you about something and forgot about it."

"If you forgot about it then its not lying."

"…." Naruto didn't know what to think about that. It didn't make him feel any less guilty about it. He had always told his parents everything.

"Did you want to tell me about it?"

The boy was saved from answering when Kurenai slammed the door open her eyes searching for the other psychologist.

"Iruka! You need to come back in now!"

"Stay here for now Naruto I'll be right back." Iruka asked Naruto before rushing out of the room.

The blonde curled up on the chair and tried to stave away the long held tears that were threatening to break through with his fathers departure. Conflicting emotions warred within him as he sat along the interminable wait stretching onwards until the door was opened again.

/

**Rei: "review… pwease!" O_O**


	7. Chapter 7

**I know you are probably sick of glancing at this at the top of every page; but if you have made this far without guessing to what I am alluding to it serves you right. I don't own Naruto or any of its affiliates. NOW READ BITCHES!**

"_Yeah but I lied to you too."_

"_What did you lie about?"_

"_I didn't tell you about something and forgot about it."_

"_If you forgot about it then its not lying."_

"…_." Naruto didn't know what to think about that. It didn't make him feel any less guilty about it. He had always told his parents everything._

"_Did you want to tell me about it?"_

_The boy was saved from answering when Kurenai slammed the door open her eyes searching for the other psychologist._

"_Iruka! You need to come back in now!"_

"_Stay here for now Naruto I'll be right back." Iruka asked Naruto before rushing out of the room._

_The blonde curled up on the chair and tried to stave away the long held tears that were threatening to break through with his fathers departure. Conflicting emotions warred within him as he sat along the interminable wait stretching onwards until the door was opened again._

/

**7**

As time passed; Naruto heard what sounded like many people passing through the corridor outside of the room he was stuck in. There was the sharp clicking of high heels, as well as the rapping footfalls of flat shoes in big feet. Despite all this noise, not once had someone come to check on him. Fear settled around the blonde, weighing heavily onto him as the wait became longer and longer. Was Sasuke alright? He couldn't stop thinking about it. Was Iruka still with him? What had happened to him to make him that sick? Any number of questions revolved around in his mind, all remaining unanswered. Naruto was by nature a very impatient, and flighty boy. He hated to be cooped up in one space for too long, and the only activity he could occupy his mind with in here was to think. Although, thinking was not always the most advisable activity for those in distress. Soon his mind turned to darker thoughts. Why did everything bad happen all at once, and why always around him? What had he done to deserve this? And more importantly what had the people around him done to deserve it? The more he thought about it the more he became convinced that the reason Sasuke was sick was because of him. He may not know what he had done exactly, but he was most surely the catalyst. How could he not be? They were always in close contact having to share a room. They most certainly did not get along at the best of times. He had access to most of Sasuke's files, being in Iruka's confidence (although he was not as underhanded as to have used them…was he?).

"Shut up" he whispered under his breath his eyes darting around the room. It seemed like he was no longer in control of his thoughts and his eyes darted about the room trying to find out who was making him believe these things and think them.

'But I could have….' he thought. 'I might have….'

A tear slipped passed his eyelid pushed away as he closed them. His grip on his seat flexed becoming tight as his thoughts progressed only to become loose as he realised the footsteps had stopped. He opened his eyes again and was met by a pair of shiny black shoes in front the him.

"Naruto?" he hadn't even noticed the door had opened.

He looked up slowly to meet with the eyes of his father. Not the one he had been waiting for but his father none the less.

"…" he found he couldn't say anything even though he opened his mouth to try and greet him.

/

Kakashi stared down in worry as his little boy sat there responding. He had been informed by Iruka which room he was in and had made his way there directly. He had though that Naruto would want to remain in the infirmary with his friend. Although it was no surprise to him that he wasn't allowed. But he had thought he would have made a bigger fuss about it, he was stubborn in this regard. Looking down at him now though, Kakashi realised that there was something much more wrong then he had anticipated.

"Naruto?"

He waited for him to respond and was relieved when the blonde head rose to look at him. His sense of relief quickly drained away when he saw the tear tracks down his eyes and the manic look in his eyes.

The boys mouth opened in front of him as if to placate his worry and explain away the tears.

Nothing came.

Immediately gathered the boy up into his arms; pulling him off the couch he was seated on, and onto the floor as he knelt. Naruto made no move to stop him, or to cling to him as he usually would in such a state. It was as if he was in some sort of stasis, as if he brain had stopped functioning and was trying to figure out why. He held on all the more tightly for this and rocked back and forwards gently in a soothing motion. In an attempt to calm down his son as much as himself. Eventually Naruto's arms wrapped around his neck. Almost languorously the blonde head of hair was settled against his neck. Kakashi could feel the tear drops running from the face buried in the crook of his neck down to his chest and all he could do was rub at his back and hope that Iruka would come soon.

/

"What do you think is happening?"

"I don't know; but it must be pretty important to have them all running around like headless chooks."

Kiba land Shikamaru observed the events surrounding them with no little apprehension. It was never a good sign when the doctors and aides were running round like this. It always signified something bad. Like someone had acted out and they were therefore going to place more strictures on everyone or that someone had tried to commit suicide or something. In any case it was definitely concerning someone on their ward, and was ergo most likely a friend.

"Do you think it has anything to do with Naruto?" Kiba asked his more intelligent counterpart.

"More then likely." was the response the received. "It could also be the Uchiha, I haven't seen him today."

"Maybe both of them." Kiba commented.

Shikamaru sighed. "No that I have something better to do but I would appreciate it if you would change the subject or at least stop talking." he rolled over so he was lying on his stomach one arm hanging of the couch he was laying on.

Kiba growled. "Fine, I'll go find someone more interesting to hang with. Maybe Haku or Shino will want to play."

Standing up he walked out of the room ignoring the way his peer rolled his eyes at his behaviour. He was used to it. Nobody took him seriously in here, or on the outside….Just because he didn't want to sit down and do boring crap all day. What's wrong with getting outside and being healthy? Nothing at all, that's what!

Kiba was so wrapped in his discontent that he didn't notice that he had run into someone until he was on the floor.

"Watch you it you mutt." the silver haired doctor spat out at him. At least he looked like a doctor. He had glasses on and was wearing one of those stupid looking lab coats. Although he hadn't seen any of the other doctors ever wearing one around here, maybe they were a different type of doctors to this one. Absentmindedly he growled at man and took a swipe at him. He would have thought that everyone in the ward knew better then to call him a mutt. He was definitely an Inuzuka pure-bred. How could that man not notice that? His scowl turned upwards into a smirk, maybe he could teach this guy a lesson. It wasn't like any of the other adults were around to stop him, they were too busy with whatever crap was happening in the infirmary. The man took a step back worried at the change of emotions in the boy he had just knocked down. He should have been watching more carefully, he was in a mental institution after all. Suddenly the man was knocked back himself and he was struggling with a seemingly rabid teen on all fours. After the first four bites and six punches the mysterious doctor made the decision to escape. Kiba barked up a storm realising what the man was trying to do. Why should he be deprived of his fun just because this man didn't want to fight him anymore. In one last ditch effort Kiba grabbed the guys white jacket to try and keep him still. The man soon slipped his arms out of it however and ran down the hallway. Kiba sniffed at the man's cowardice, then chuckled in victory. He even had a trophy to commemorate the win taking the jacket between his teeth he proceeded on all four towards the common room where he had left Shikamaru. His back straight and his head held high he resolved that playing with random doctors was much more interesting then playing with Shikamaru.

/

As soon as Iruka entered the room he noticed the tension in his lover's shoulders. Hearing the door open and then shut behind him Kakashi tightened his grip on Naruto and attempted to turn his head to see who it was without Naruto been woken. At some point during his tenure in the room Naruto had stopped crying and fallen into a fitful sleep. Kakashi had then moved them up onto the sofa and arranged him more comfortably to settle down for the long haul.

"How is he doing?" Iruka asked moving to crouch beside their seat.

"Not very well at all I'm afraid." Kakashi moved one of his hands slowly to rub at his eye. He sighed; "I wasn't very much help I'm afraid. I couldn't find anything to say to him. I don't know enough of the problem to be useful. Its closer to your forte I'm afraid."

Iruka grasped the hand rubbing at his partner's eye and held it in his own. "I think it was enough that you were here for him." he said. "I wish I could have stayed with him longer but I'm afraid that Sasuke needed my help more at the time."

"How is he?" Kakashi asked gently squeezing Iruka's hand.

"Better…now that we've established exactly what was wrong with him. I'm afraid that someone had been messing with his prescriptions. Its made him really sick and we almost lost him. We had to pump his stomach before we could do anything. The problem now is finding out what went wrong. I'm afraid that I could get in trouble for it as well. I am his doctor after all."

"But you didn't do anything." Kakashi frowned.

"No but I believe that I am liable."

"Who is looking into it?"

"I think it may be Genma but I'm not sure."

Kakashi sighed. He would have offered to help[ but he had enough on his plate as it was and he couldn't be on too many cases that involved his family be it indirectly or not.

"I'll stay until Naruto wakes up but I'll have to stay late at work to catch up on paperwork."

Iruka sighed. It seemed that the two of them were spending less and less time together lately. He knew that it wasn't their fault but maybe the should be making more of an effort to amend the situation.

Naruto stirred then in his sleep attracting the attention of both males. His eyes fluttered open and they waited with bated breath for his reaction.

I took a moment for Naruto to realise that he had woken up and where he was. It was then that his eyes filled with tears that were then left unshed. He observed that both of his fathers were now here.

"Is Sasuke all right?" he asked immediately sitting up.

Iruka came and sat down on the floor in front of the pair. Taking on of Naruto's small hands in his own he smiled wanly at him.

"He's stable."

The blonde looked at him expectantly as if he was waiting for an elaboration;

"Well?…"

"I can't tell you anything more then that. I can't disclose personal information to other patients. You know that well enough Naruto."

"Yeah but I'm his roommate.." Naruto sat up more then tears disappearing from his lids to be replaced by consternation.

"That hasn't got anything to do with it." Iruka sighed.

" So?" Naruto pouted.

"If you want to know anything more about it you're going to have to ask him about it yourself when he returns to the dorms." Iruka stood up cracking his back.

"I think we've all earned a big meal don't you? Why don't we head down to the cafeteria?"

Naruto grabbed Kakashi's wrist and dragged it up to his eye level. "But dinner is over by now."

"I know that. But I just happen to have four or five instant ramen packets in my cupboard. Or weren't you feeling well enough to have any?"

Jumping up immediately the teen grabbed his fathers hand in his own and almost ran out of the room. "You're not getting out of giving me any now old man. Hurry up"

Iruka gave Kakashi a wistful look over his shoulder. It was nice to know that even if they couldn't solve all of their son's problems they still knew how to bring him out of a funk.

**Rei; "Meow"**


End file.
